Arrest
by True Colours
Summary: Revenge isn't about life and death; it's about power. Until Julius can win Alex's heart, his life is safe.  Warnings for slash, lovehate and S&M.
1. Arrest

**A/N: I can't believe nobody has done this yet (as far as I can tell). On the other hand, maybe that's just because I've been hanging out in *creepy fandoms* for too long. Before I let you go read, just a quick note on the characterisation of Julius:**

**Anthony Horowitz made a shocking waste of a potentially good character, so I'm going to break the rule of a lifetime and characterise him however the hell I want to.**

**That said, he is a creepy psycho so I will endeavour to work within that frame. Happy reading!**

The kettle was shrieking.

Julius knew it was old-fashioned; the heavy metal monstrosity with the whistle in the spout that had to be boiled on the hot ring of the stove, but he preferred it. A modern kettle was too much like life. You put it on to boil and it purred quietly away, turned itself off with an unassuming snap and waited, all eager and dutiful, to be poured. And what if you didn't bother to pour it? Nothing. Life puts us on to boil, but often it seems like it's forgotten to come back and make use of the things we've prepared. We can be bubbling over with desire, and nothing will bother to pour us. It all seems horribly pointless. A modern kettle was too much like life, and too much like him.

But something did happen if he didn't pour the water in this kettle. It sat on the stove and screamed its head off. So Julius preferred it.

He heard – or thought he heard – the softest of creaks in the hallway. Possibly his imagination, but probably not. He had been about to lift the kettle off the hob, but instead he flipped the power off and left it sitting on the heated ring, keeping warm. A slight breath of air on the back of his neck told him that the kitchen door had swung open.

'Rider, would you stop breaking into my house?'

'Well, _sorry_,' the familiar voice said from behind him, sarcasm so exaggerated he could practically hear the eye-roll. 'I did ring twice, you know. S'not my fault you're too lazy to answer the door.'

'Oh.' Julius turned around to stare at Alex, unrepentant. 'The kettle was boiling.'

'Uh-huh.' Alex appeared to be losing interest, swinging round by one hand from one of the wooden posts which supported the ceiling. 'Who has pillars in their kitchen anyway?' he asked, completing a circuit and raising an eyebrow at Julius. 'Talk about pretentious.'

'Oh, belt up,' Julius said, turning back to the stove.

Alex bounced forward to look over his shoulder. 'Oh, are you making tea?'

Julius moved him _gently_ aside with one elbow. 'In a bit. First I've got something for you.'

'Something? For me? Like a present?'

'You could say that.'

'Bet I know what it is. Bet it's a rattlesnake.'

'No.'

'A tarantula?'

'Not deadly enough.'

Alex smacked himself in the forehead. 'How could I not have guessed before? It's a scorpion?'

Julius grinned. 'Close. Go upstairs; it's in my room.'

'In your room?' Alex asked over his shoulder as Julius began to herd him towards the door.

'Yes. Now go on.' Julius gave him a final push up the stairs and then turned back into the kitchen.

Alex sighed as he jogged up the stairs, wondering if this was just an excuse to get him into the bedroom. Somehow he doubted it; Julius was usually more subtle than that. All the same, he kept a careful ear out in case the other boy doubled back and followed him. There was no sound; he seemed to have gone back into the kitchen. Alex turned right along the landing and pushed open the door to Julius's room. It took him a moment's glancing around to spot what he was supposed to be looking for. Then he spotted it, and his mouth fell open – though really he shouldn't have been surprised by now.

'Awww,' he complained, slumping in the doorway. 'Come on!'

After a moment he sloped across the room and picked up the folded navy clothes on the bed, letting them unfold. It was a police uniform, complete with chequered cap and handcuffs clipped to the belt.

'Guess that's what all the measurement-taking last weekend was about,' Alex muttered, holding the trousers up against himself. '_Why_ are people always trying to make me act?'

He dragged the chest of drawers across the door before he even thought about changing, just in case Julius was planning on walking in while he was hopping around half-in and half-out of his trousers. Then he shook out the clothes, glared at them for a few moments and began to put them on.

It couldn't have been an exact replica of a police uniform, he decided as he dressed; the blue was a little lighter than what he had seen on the streets, and he would probably have liked the way it complimented his skin and hair, if he'd been that kind of guy. Julius had omitted the bulky stab-proof vest as well ('and I bet I'm going to really need one. Dammit.') and, looking in the mirror, Alex decided that there was no way any regular cop's uniform would fit them quite that well.

'Tcha!' he said to his reflection, and then, determined to claw back a little control over the situation, ignored the door and scrambled out of the window.

Julius was moving about the kitchen, pretending to be busy but with all his attention focussed on the stairs. Honestly, how long did it take someone to change clothes? _Whiney narcissist,_ he grumbled internally. _He's probably checking his hair meticulously in the mirror_. He licked his lower lip, catching his lip-ring with his tongue. Of course, Alex didn't like him to leave it in, and that would make him whine more…Julius smirked – and then slammed a hand down on the counted as a loud knock sounded at the door.

'_Dammit!_' he cursed, flexing his aching fingers. What now, just when he was about to be busy? He stalked out into the hall and flung the front door open.

'_Yes_?'

For a moment all he saw of the figure on the doorstep below him was a flash of blue, and his stomach actually lurched. Then his visitor looked up, revealing golden hair and sarcastic expression beneath the peaked cap, and his _ohmyGodwhatdidIdo_ changed in a moment to _wow, I'm good._ Alex's hair, curling just a little too long to comply with any kind of dress regulations, subtly contradicted the uniform, the crisp blue shirt fitted perfectly at his neck and wrists and his eyes, whether he knew it or not, were already taking on a smoulder that was delightfully at odds with the character he was supposed to be playing. And, of course, he'd managed to dodge Julius and come round by the front door. _Was I right, or was I right?_ Julius thought smugly, looking him up and down with barely disguised appreciation.

'I'm sorry to bother you on a weekend,' Alex said, any embarrassment in his voice only enhancing the polite British policeman-character that Julius had been after, 'but I'm afraid there's been a spot of trouble in the neighbourhood. Could I come in for a moment?'

'No problem,' Julius drawled, stepping back a little to leave the doorway clear. He had no doubt that Alex was going to find him guilty of something, but for now, just like a seasoned criminal, he would play innocent and helpful. 'Come through this way,' he beckoned, leading the way down the hallway.

'Is this even legal?' Alex asked, lapsing back into his own persona as he followed Julius into the kitchen. They never planned out scenes beforehand – Julius liked his roleplay unpredictable, and besides, he could never go for more than five minutes without breaking character to make a bitchy comment, so there wasn't much point. Right now, Alex was trying to think of a crime. A crime small enough to get the ordinary police involved in, that was.

Julius shrugged. 'I expect so. It's not an exact replica, after all.'

'I rather thought not,' Alex murmured. Julius took the slightest of glances over his shoulder as he stepped into the kitchen. God, _that accent_ with _that uniform…_ he disguised a shiver as a shrug of the shoulders, moving over to lounge against the counter.

'So, what seems to be the problem, officer?'

Alex was sideways on to him, staring mysteriously at the kitchen cupboards, but he thought he caught the flicker of an eye-roll.

'There was an incident at one of the local night spots last night,' Alex answered, expression thoughtful. He took off the cap and swung it idly in one hand; his hair caught the light. 'I don't suppose you heard anything?'

'No,' Julius said, 'I didn't hear anything.' He hoped Alex would give him an excuse for some less bland dialogue soon.

'Well, we arrested a man, and I'm afraid he was in possession of a quite considerable quantity of cocaine.'

'Cocaine?' Julius echoed. Genius response.

'Crack cocaine,' Alex reiterated solemnly. Julius thought about snapping, _you're on crack,_ just to liven things up a bit, and maybe adding that it would have been better if Alex had been on crack because then he might have thought of something more interesting to arrest him for, but he stayed silent.

'Anyway,' Alex continued, still spinning the hat and not looking directly at him, 'we've been following up a few leads…'

'And they led you here?' Julius asked indignantly.

The look Alex threw him was apologetic, but also steely. 'Would you mind terribly if I looked in these cupboards of yours?'

'Not at all,' Julius said coldly – innocent householder offended. 'Knock yourself out.' _Please, do knock yourself out._

Alex crouched – enough strength in his legs not to need to kneel – in front of the first cupboard, and pulled it open. Nothing but crockery and a few spiders. Maybe he should have planted a surface-to-air missile-launcher or something in there, just to give Alex something to discover. Or – he thought back to Alex's earlier snarking – something a little more exciting among the ordinary house-spiders. At least a snaplock bag of white powder. Alex had found nothing, he was moving on…going down on one knee this time, and Julius traced an eye from the nape of his neck, down the curve of his spine to where the dark blue trousers were tightening round his ass and thighs, remembering the first moment when he had realised that maybe he didn't have to hate him after all, and had gone a little to the other extreme while exploring the alternative options…not that he didn't still hate him, with his perfectly gelled blond hair and his Chelsea accent and his smug 'I-saved-the-world-ten-times-so-don't-diss' attitude…though the accent was actually damned sexy on this particular character, and the blond hair had stopped annoying Julius so much since he'd dyed his own raspberry red, and the uniform let him take the piss out of the saved-the-world attitude, so it was all good.

In the meantime, what would a criminal with a policeman searching his house do?

In short, what would he do?

Julius stepped up to the draw by the stove as Alex opened the third cupboard and pulled out a tin inside. He slid the draw softly open. Meanwhile, Alex was working the stiff lid off the tin. He pulled it open and peered inside. Julius knew those tins contained only sugar and flour, but Alex's expression was so realistic that he could feel the sweat of discovery breaking out on the back of his neck. Inside the draw, his hand closed without rummaging on the item he wanted: a small, but very sharp, black-handled knife.

Alex took a pinch of the substance in the tin and held it to his nose.

'I wouldn't swallow that if I were you,' Julius said sarcastically, sliding the knife slowly out of the drawer. He allowed it to scrape against the drawer with a delicious sheering sound, so that Alex would hear. 'You might get high.'

'This isn't a joke, sir,' Alex said sternly, getting to his feet. 'I am afraid the evidence uncovered last night leaves you severely implicated and –'

Julius lunged with the knife.

Alex whipped round, dropping the tin; his hand flashed up and the knife went spinning across the room. Billows of icing-sugar were puffing into the air and settling on Alex's clothes; Julius could taste it when he breathed in. For a moment they were both still, Alex's hand gripping Julius's wrist, Julius aching from the strike that had made him drop the knife, Alex breathless from the suddenness of the attack. Then, with a look that said 'chase me' as clearly as speaking, Julius wrenched himself free.

He dashed across the kitchen. A single footfall behind him; then Alex was tackling him from behind, sending him crashing to the ground with a gasp that wasn't entirely to do with shock and pain. And _that_, _right there_, was why he had to do this with Alex. Because who else was quick enough to notice the faint sound of a knife being drawn, so that he could attack them properly without boring forewarnings? Who was enough of a fighter that he could lose to them while still fighting his hardest? Not that Alex could always be relied upon on that front, being basically – Julius grimaced – a _nice guy_. It took a little prompting, like the knife, to wake up his survival instincts.

Right now he was dragging him into a kneeling position, forcing his head down against one of the kitchen chairs, cheek pressed flush to the cool wooden seat. Julius struggled; Alex twisted his left arm painfully up behind him, shifting his weight so that his right was trapped between his own body and the chair.

'Dammit…' Julius growled.

'You have the right to remain _silent_,' Alex was saying. The words struck Julius as somewhere between ridiculously hot and just plain ridiculous. 'However, anything you do say will be misquoted and used against you –'

'Can't you fucking stay in character for five minutes?' Julius snapped.

'What would be the point if I did? You know you wouldn't.' The smile in Alex's voice was infuriating. Julius reared up and Alex forced him back down.

'_Oh_,' he gasped. Alex drove his shoulder into the chair; Julius pressed back against him, throwing his head back until he found a shoulder to rest it against.

'You sure you know what you're doing?' he panted, trying to sneer though it was hurting like hell, and also…not hurting like hell, in other places. 'You think this is a job for one suburban cop?'

'It's not?' Alex almost purred into his ear. Was he _finally_ getting into this? 'I would very much like you to tell me _exactly_ what kind of a job it is.'

'Nice try.'

'Would make my life so much easier.'

'Go fuck yourself.'

Alex leaned away from him – just as an affronted young officer would do – and Julius whipped his arm free, reached round behind him and seized a handful of Alex's hair.

'Ouch!' Alex protested. He let go of Julius with one hand to knock his arm away, and then had to dive forward to stop him from wriggling free. Both of them tumbled even further towards the floor; Julius growled as his chin banged the seat of the chair. He could taste blood.

'You clutz,' he barked, then snapped hastily back into character. 'I mean it, officer. If you get involved, I promise you, you _won't like it_. Sure you won't take a wink, a grind and no questions asked?'

'Trying to seduce an officer of the law,' Alex said sternly, 'will _not_ look good on your record.'

'But it'll look good on my CV,' Julius quipped back, grinding his teeth. _Seriously, there's no need to be _that_ in character, you stuffy old –_ 'I have contacts who would be highly impressed to see me flirt my way out of this one.' He pushed his leg backwards, managing to get his thigh up between Alex's – not an easy manoeuvre, as it left him essentially balancing on one knee and his chin.

'_Enough_,' Alex insisted, completely contradicting himself by bringing his right hand down to grab _right there_. Julius moaned, found that his right arm was free, reached round and raked his nails up Alex's thigh.

Another difference between these clothes and a police uniform: the cloth was a little thinner than the sturdy material Scotland Yard used, and definitely thinner than denim, Alex's material of choice. Alex hissed and shoved him forward, flat on his belly on the floor; he ground back upwards, wishing Alex would _just press his hips closer dammit_…

'Alright,' he panted. Alex's hand – the one over his crotch – squeezed threateningly. 'Alright. Look, I'll…I'll come quietly okay? Just…lemme turn over.'

'Oh no.' Alex shook his head. He had learned the hard way what happened when you gave Julius an inch. He bit. Alex was surprised it hadn't happened yet.

'Awww,' Julius mumbled, slumping. Then he dug the nails of both hands into Alex's hips as hard as he could.

Alex snarled and his weight vanished, but before Julius could begin to take advantage of the fact a hand cracked across the back of his head. He saw stars.

'Fucking bastard copper!' The words were spilling from his mouth without thought. 'Can't you give a guy a –' A foot in his ribs. Damn, he'd forgotten to get proper boots to go with the uniform…another blow from the hand. 'Excuse me,' he called, lifting his head, 'but I believe I provided you with a truncheon – '

Alex's foot came down firmly on his lower back. 'Most people,' he said, and Julius was pleased to hear that he sounded breathless, 'being beaten up on their kitchen floor, would stop acting like whiney entitled bitches, but you…'

'Are being beaten up by a pussy.'

One last blow had him completely flat on the floor.

'Now,' Alex's voice said from somewhere above him, 'I think you said you would come quietly.'

Julius said nothing. After a few moments Alex seemed to take his silence for confirmation. He crouched down, took hold of both Julius's wrists and dragged his hands so that they were crossed on the back of his head. 'Don't move. Stay flat on the floor. I am going to cuff you.'

He turned away, hands reaching for his belt.

In a heartbeat Julius was up, and this time Alex was just a fraction of a second too slow. He raised his arm, but Julius twisted it away and jabbed him in the shoulder. Alex's face twisted in pain and he slumped backwards, Julius catching him as his legs buckled.

'Ow!' Alex gasped. 'What did you – _ow_!'

'Nerve cluster,' Julius shrugged. Then his face darkened. 'You let me up.'

'No I didn't! I let go of you for like one second!'

'But I'm up, aren't I?' Julius pointed out coolly, beginning to haul Alex across the room with his hand still pressed firmly into a pressure point on his bicep.

'Well…' Alex said unwillingly, 'yes, but…'

Julius slammed him hard into one of the pillars and Alex blinked, something like alarm showing in his eyes for the first time.

'You let me up,' Julius repeated. 'How do you expect to handcuff someone if you're just going to let go of them and let them do whatever they want?'

'I thought you _wanted_ to be handcuffed,' Alex said feebly.

'Yes, but not that pussy-handcuffing you were doing,' Julius shot back, strolling round behind the pillar and jerking Alex backwards by both arms.

Alex made one of his adorable/infuriating indignant British noises. Julius reached for the handcuffs.

'Well, how would _you_ handcuff someone the –' Alex stopped as the cuffs clicked into place round his wrists. 'Oh.' He tugged experimentally. 'Oops.'

Julius chuckled, strolling back round to the front of the pillar, and then without warning he backhanded Alex savagely across the face.

Alex's head cracked backwards into the pillar, and twin pains exploded. 'OW!' he yelled. Julius's eyes were over-bright. He hit Alex again, then lunged forward, grabbing his hair and dragging his head back and…yes, there it was, he was biting the point where Alex's neck met his shoulder, sinking his teeth in, in till his jaw locked and trembled, then pulling and dragging down, stinging and gouging, while his nails raked up Alex's belly under his shirt, leaving stinging scratches. Alex bit his lip against the pain and arched, hissed, moaned…and was saved from screaming when Julius let go of his mouthful. Saved for a moment, that was, because Julius lost no time in finding another line of attack.

How did he get into these situations? It wasn't as if he even liked pain and danger and _fuck_, he was hard, Julius's teeth were murderous but his lips and were all tenderness around them, and trying to unravel the tangle of sensations sent Alex's mind tumbling in hopeless circles. He arched his back again, pressing himself against Julius, who grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back, forcing him into the _really-quite-narrow-and-sharp-edged_ beam until they were pressed together from shoulders to knees, grinding helplessly hard-on to hard-on with Alex even as he kept up the punishing twisting and scratching of his hands. So at least sexual taunting wasn't on the menu (not yet, anyway). Alex braced himself as well as he could and ground back.

Julius grunted and jammed a knee up between his thighs, pressing painfully hard, and Alex gave a yelp.

'Below the belt!' he panted.

'Shut up, bitch,' Julius snarled, slapping him again, but Alex didn't care; Julius hadn't pulled away far enough to put a proper swing behind it, and the resulting impact was barely worth mentioning. Julius delivered just the one perfunctory blow and then seized his chin in a grip more painful than the slap, plunging back in again to crush their lips together in a fierce, messy kiss, the first they'd shared that day, and dammit, who cared if it was screwed-up and rough, he was a horny teenager and Julius's tongue was right down his throat where he wanted it. He pressed up into the kiss, returning it with as much finesse as Julius was showing tenderness. Julius gave another sharp gasp, then slammed him backwards once again, pulling on fistfuls of his hair so that that burning, easy pain flared at the roots, then letting go, sliding his hands down Alex's chest, under his shirt, down to grope his ass and slip round his knee and pull his leg up against his hip to grind them harder together, all the time kissing his face, his neck, his collarbone, somehow finding himself in too much of a rush to use teeth. Alex couldn't help but find it fucking delicious, even though he knew full well what was coming next. If Julius ever forgot himself and started kissing like this, sooner or later he would make up for it by making what happened afterwards extra-painful. For now, though, he was cupping one hand round the back of Alex's neck, tugging his shirt the rest of the way out of his trousers with the other. He fumbled with the buttons for a moment, then hooked his fingers into the fabric and ripped.

'_What_,' Alex said breathlessly, pulling away, 'is the point of shelling out for an imitation police uniform if you're just going to tear it off me?'

'The point of shelling out for the imitation police uniform _is_ to tear it off you,' Julius explained slowly.

'Oh.' Alex shook his head a little, trying to clear it. 'I see.' Julius smirked, took his face in both hands and kissed him slowly and deeply…and ouch, there was the pain, in the form of Julius's teeth meeting around his tongue.

Alex gave a muffled yell and lashed out instinctively with his foot. His heel struck solidly home, sending Julius stumbling away from him.

'You fucking bastard,' Alex snarled. He could taste blood.

Julius straightened up, slowly bringing his glare under control, turning it into a smirk.

'You did not,' he said.

'Yes I did,' Alex snapped. He was starting to feel uneasy again. He rattled the handcuffs, trying to search for a way out, though he doubted there was any good in it.

Julius watched him with an enigmatic expression, then turned and moved away from him. _Oh come on, don't leave me here and go jerk off in the bathroom…_ He crouched down with his back to Alex, hands shielded by his body. Alex saw him pick something up.

When he turned around, he held the black-handled knife in his hand.

'Oh…' Alex said slowly, '…shit.'

Julius grinned broadly and began to walk towards him.

'C'mon, man, that's not funny,' Alex said, trying to sound stern. Julius caught his eye with a look that wasn't a wink but might as well have been. Alex waited until he was in range, then tried another kick, but this time Julius was too quick for him. He dodged to the side and caught hold of his ankle.

'Damn, I should have got something to tie your legs with as well,' he remarked. Then his fingers shifted, and Alex felt sickening pain shoot up his leg.

'Ah!' he gasped, slumping backwards. Julius let go his ankle and strolled forward, holding up the knife.

'Julius…' Alex warned.

'What?' Julius inquired, glancing down at the shining blade. 'You afraid?'

Alex gave him a Look. 'A little nervous, yeah. Should I not be?'

'I would love to be able to reassure you, Alex,' Julius sighed. He rested the edge of the blade lightly against Alex's chest and began to walk slowly around him, trailing it over his skin. 'But that would be lying.'

Alex shifted uneasily as Julius disappeared out of his line of vision. The blade lifted briefly from his skin as its holder moved around the back of the pillar, then reappeared on his other side.

'Come on, Jules, enough already!' he growled. No response. 'I said enou – ow!' The blade had nicked his skin, just over his collarbone.

'What the fuck are you playing at?' he hissed. And suddenly Julius was right up against him.

'It's so cute,' he murmured in his ear, 'how you still think there are rules. Things that are acceptable, and things that aren't. Things I wouldn't do.'

The blade stung him again, deeper this time. He felt blood seeping from the two cuts, and Julius smiled against his cheek.

'You had enough?'

'I told you, yes!' Alex snapped. The touch of the knife under his chin brought him up short.

'Not a chance, Alex,' Julius said softly. He tilted Alex's chin upwards on the blade, then slid the knife down his throat. 'I've got you _exactly_ where I want you.'

He pressed a gentle kiss to the spot directly over Alex's pulse.

'What the hell?' Alex demanded.

'Stop what-the-helling, Rider, you know you love it.' Julius kissed him again.

'Maybe.' Alex's voice felt a little higher than usual. 'You know I'd love to lose myself in the tender ecstasy of your lips and all that, but…'

'But you're a little freaked out?' Julius suggested. He pulled back and grinned. 'More fun for me.'

'Huh.'

'Aww, relax, Rider.' Julius rammed the knife deep into the wooden post and let it go. Alex gulped. Julius chuckled darkly and pulled his head back by the hair – gently, though, this time – beginning to kiss a path down his neck to the collar of his torn-open shirt.

'Like that?' he mumbled as he kissed.

'Uh…uh-huh?'

Julius rolled his eyes. 'You are _so _vanilla.'

'And you are beyond kinky. Let's not…' he slipped up a little on the words as Julius's lips brushed his nipple. 'Let's not judge one another, m'kay? You're going to bite that, aren't you?'

Julius sniggered and caught the nipple between his teeth.

'Ow,' Alex said half-heartedly. Julius shrugged and moved lower, tracing round the edge of one of Alex's pretty-damned-nice pecs while his fingers combed through his treasure-trail. Alex was pretty much blond all over, but Julius's body hair had started coming out dark. Another difference, another reason to hate Alex just a little bit less.

When he slid down onto his knees Alex gasped; Julius could see in the tautness of his muscles that he was trying to resist bucking forward. _Yeah, sure, pretend you don't want it_. He leaned forward, brushing his lips over the sensitive places right on Alex's belt-line that made his stomach muscles flutter involuntarily when they were kissed. Alex took a deep, steadying breath, so then of course Julius had to make sure he was thoroughly unsteadied by latching on to the front of his trousers and starting to suck. Alex gasped and arched, and Julius pulled away, remarking,

'You're covered in icing sugar.'

'Must make a nice change for you.'

'I hate sugar.'

Alex made an exasperated sound. 'So don't suck my trousers then; God!'

'You want me to undo them.'

'I want nothing of the sort! I'm just saying if you don't like sugar –'

'Whatever.' Julius reached forward, dealing with buttons, zip, the flap of boxers…if anyone had suggested, after Alex had trashed Point Blanc, that one day he would get down on his knees for him, Julius would probably have killed them on the spot, but, well, things changed. He had been so naïve back then, thinking that what he wanted was to see Alex dead. He hadn't wanted his death at all, what he had wanted was the killing. Why do people taking revenge always gloat? Because it's not the fact of the death of your enemy, but the power you have over them beforehand, and what is the point of having that power if they don't ever get to realise that you have it? What he really wanted, Julius had come to realise over the years, was the power he would have over Alex when he was killing him slowly.

Alex had destroyed his future, beaten him, and walked away without so much as a backward glance. So easily, not caring, he had rocked Julius's world, and what Julius had been after ever since was to rock his back. And there were two ways to do that. Kill him, or…

Alex was moving his hips now; Julius swallowed each thrust easily. He had spent quite a lot of time and effort learning to deep-throat, not because he wanted Alex to feel mind-blowing pleasure or anything like that, but because he was damned if he was going to give Alex the satisfaction of seeing him do anything less than perfectly. He slid his tongue over and round and _down_ again and back up, and Alex finally gave a proper, drawn-out moan.

Julius teased a little, making his bobs unpredictable – short, long, short, short, shallow, deep – and Alex groaned, tugging on the handcuffs that he'd almost managed to forget about. He ached to get his hands in Julius's hair and move him up and down how he wanted; the feeling was, though he would never have admitted it, actually quite hot. He pulled on the cuffs again, letting them jangle. Julius would undoubtedly get off on it, but he _was_ sucking Alex off, after all; Alex supposed he kind of owed him something back. A light scrape of teeth brought him back to reality, and he decided he would reserve judgement on _exactly_ how much he owed Julius until after he'd come. He had learnt never to take anything for granted with Julius; one never knew when he might bite, or slow down agonisingly, or get bored and wander off to leave him hard and with nothing he could do about it – Alex grimaced; that had happened once. All in all, a blowjob from Julius was rather difficult to relax into, though that at least meant he was lasting a good long time. Julius was urging him to give in to it though, fluttering, pressing, massaging with his tongue, finding all the best spots; teasing over his slit, blowing his breath out hot-and-cold over his saliva-wet skin. _Come on, don't do anything stupid this time_, Alex pleaded internally. _Just carry on and let me finish_… A hand came up to cup his balls – _because of course _you_ can still use your hands, bastard_ – rolling and squeezing, Julius was taking him in again, lips sliding easily now down his slick shaft, teeth – dammit – but thank goodness, only gently, skimming down, then tongue over his head and _sucking_ – and he was coming, hard, arms twisting awkwardly as his body spasmed, head pressed back into the squared-off edge of the post, but too lost in the hot wet pleasure round his cock to care.

The feeling subsided. Breathing heavily, eyes closed, he felt Julius swallow, slowly, slide off him and pull his trousers back into place. He heard the brisk buzz of his zip being pulled up, then a rustle as Julius got to his feet.

'You totally just solicited sex from a criminal suspect,' he whispered in his ear. 'Are you sure you wouldn't rather just drop this, officer?'

'Solicited? More like you insisted.'

'You see it that way?' Julius asked, then shrugged and leaned in closer. 'In that case I'll insist again if you let me off.'

Alex wasn't sure what realistic conclusion they could draw this scene to, but he felt that something was required.

'Alright then, I'll see what I can do,' he grumbled.

'Super-dooper,' Julius breathed, then reached both arms round him, in what could almost have been an embrace, to snap the handcuffs free.

Released, Alex stretched his arms up, rolling his shoulders, then wrapped them firmly around Julius and pulled him close.

'What the hell are you doing?' Julius demanded.

'Hugging.'

Julius wriggled. 'Now that really _is_ weird.'

'I know, right,' Alex agreed vaguely, resting his cheek on Julius's hair, remembering the day when Sabina had said grumpily, 'Jules, you hate looking like Alex so much? _Buy some hair dye already_!'

'Hey, Jules,' Alex said, pushing a thigh into his groin in search of an erection, 'do you…I mean, don't you want anything?'

Julius pulled away. 'I _did_ want to be handcuffed to my bed and fucked by a police officer,' he said, 'but unfortunately you couldn't handle that, so I took care of it while I was doing you.'

'Uh…what?'

'You're incredibly unobservant when you're getting blown, you know.'

'Oh.' Alex rubbed the back of his neck. 'Er…right.'

Julius laughed. 'Yeah, right. Now, I left the kettle on the hot plate. You want some tea?'

Alex raised one eyebrow at him. 'You know, only _you_ would offer someone tea just to pander to your own fetishes.'

Julius threw him a puzzled look. 'Why else would anyone give anyone else tea?'

'It's so weird.'

'You look good drinking tea, alright? Go through to the living room and sit on the sofa; I'll make it. And put that hat back on.'

Alex followed these instructions, and in a couple of minutes Julius walked through with two cups full of milky tea. Alex took his, wondering vaguely about what sort of things Julius might have had the opportunity of putting in it but deciding that he didn't particularly care. Julius sat opposite him, his own cup untouched, and watched him as he sipped from his teacup in his ripped-up shirt and police cap, slumped in the crook between the back of the sofa and its arm, occasionally raising a hand to rub at his aching neck.

'You're all bruised,' Julius pointed out after a moment.

'Well duh,' Alex shot back. He shifted in his seat. 'Stop staring at me; it's weird.'

'Why do you come here if you don't like being stared at?' Julius asked. Alex didn't reply, just took another gulp of tea. 'I mean it: why do you come.' Another silence. '_Why_?'

Alex shrugged. 'I don't know; why do you invite me?'

'Don't ask me that!' Julius leapt to his feet and Alex put down his hot tea hastily on the table. One of _these_ moods.

'You know you're supposed to sit down and count to ten,' he said dryly.

Julius snarled. '_Why_ do you come? _Why_? Is it just because you enjoy watching me mess myself around? Are you so God-damned narcissistic you get off on your own damned face? _What_?'

Alex raised one eyebrow infuriatingly, Julius went for his collar, and Alex caught him by wrist and knee and had him flat on his back on the couch in a second.

He wriggled up so that they were eye to eye, planting an elbow either side of Julius's head.

'I do it because you need it,' he said gently.

'Saint Rider,' Julius spat.

'I _care_ that you need it,' Alex said. He bent down and kissed Julius on the lips. 'And I do it because you're the only person I know who's just as fucked-up as I am, and because you actually are a pretty good snogger.' He bit his lip ruefully. 'Once we get past the whole biting thing.'

'Which you still claim to hate.'

Alex sighed and rolled onto his back. 'I don't know if I could really do it vanilla, to be honest,' he said. He glanced sideways. 'Maybe with you.'

'Because you know that I get violent so if I wasn't violent it would be for real?'

Alex took a moment to decipher this sentence, then nodded. 'Yeah, that's it.'

Julius propped himself on his elbow and brushed a hand over the cuts on Alex's chest.

'I should clean those up,' he muttered.

'It's not really necessary; they're not deep.'

'I want to do the whole bandages and disinfectant thing, okay?' Julius huffed, getting to his feet. 'Jeez, so _fucking _obtuse…'

'_So damned kinky_,' Alex mouthed, rolling his eyes to the ceiling.

'Oh, just suck it up, Al.'

'Hey,' Alex called, as Julius made for the door. 'You know, I think this shirt still has a _bit_ of wear in it? You up for another round? I'll get it right this time.'

Julius turned in the doorway. 'Oh, _sure_ you will.'

'Come on, I'm not a mind-reader. Give me a chance.'

'Oh, all right,' Julius sighed, trying not to look eager in the slightest. 'My bed's got pretty good rails for cuffing people to; just let me get the first-aid kit.'

Alex remembered something. 'Oh, Jules? We might have to break in through the window, I'm afraid. I put the dresser across the door and forgot to move it before I came downstairs.

'Well, of all the…_genius_,' Julius yelled from the hall. Alex lay back on the sofa and grinned.

Just casually climb through an upstairs window. He was sure that between them they would manage it.

All in all, he had to admit there were worse ways to spend a weekend.

**A/N: Julius is unstable which means I can make him have random plot-important mood-swings WHENEVER THE HECK I WANT! Mwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!**

**Also, I think I'm the only person I know who goes off into long philosophical explanations _in the middle of blow-jobs. _Trying – desperately – to – prove – this – pairing – works – So, how was it? Leave a review, and feel free to take it apart, because it was my first attempt at PWP, kinksex, smut involving Alex (sort of – I have been known to fade to black) and Julius's character, and it needs fine-tuning. Also send me links to any other Julius-fics you know of; that boy requires a MAJOR fandom-resuscitation. **

**True Colours, over and out!**


	2. Catch the Air

**Catch the Air**

**A/N: This 'oneshot' seems to have sprouted a few extra chapters. They are going to be random scenes with no particular order or plot, and I'm not sure how many there will be, but I hope you enjoy what you get. Warnings for this chapter: breathplay. That's like strangling, for those of you who don't know (like I really shouldn't. Why do I know?).**

Julius pulls on the end of his belt, admiring the way it tightens and digs into the flesh, the way the buckle presses the skin white. He draws it as tight as he can, winds it round his hand and holds it, holds it, holds it, breathing slowly and deeply as arousal mounts inside him.

Alex taps twice on the floor, and Julius lets him breathe.

Alex gasps, air flooding into his lungs, and Julius gets up on his knees for a moment so that his diaphragm can rise. When Alex has taken a couple of deep breaths he sits back again, his weight settling on Alex's torso and pinning him to the ground. He can tell that Alex would like to massage his throat, but his arms are pinned to his sides by Julius's knees. Flat on his back on the living-room carpet, he can only lie still and pant.

'Alright?' Julius asks.

'That damned buckle…' Alex says thickly.

'Sorry.' Julius shrugs, insincere. 'Ready to go again?'

'Just a sec –' Alex tries, but Julius jerks the belt tight anyway, and his voice cuts off with a gagging sound. He can stop him speaking whenever he likes, with a twitch of the hand, and it's so damned _hot_. Julius reaches down with his right hand, keeping his left tight on the belt, and begins to jerk himself, doing it as slowly as he's choking Alex. It takes time to get a result; Alex is good at holding his breath – Julius remembers a story about him escaping from a locked, flooded room by swimming through a pipe – and a spark of pride keeps him lying still and impassive for as long as possible. He was already out of breath, though, and this time it isn't long before his body is betraying him by tiny signs, twitching at first and then arching ever so slightly off the floor, searching for the slack in the belt.

This time Julius lets him tap five times before he lets go.

'You're not…' Alex gasps and tries again. 'Not exactly getting…the concept…of safeword, are you? Safe-gesture; whatever.'

Julius laughs and lets go of the end of the belt, sliding his hand between the buckle and Alex's neck and tugging the leather loose. As he pulls the belt free and pushes it aside, Alex's every muscle slumps with relief.

They quickly tense up again when his fingers replace it.

With both hands around Alex's neck he can't touch himself and has to settle for grinding awkwardly against Alex's chest, but it's worth it to be able to _feel_ what he's doing to him: the warm skin, the pulse of the blood, the straining cords in his neck trying to force his hands out far enough to admit a breath of air.

Alex struggles, but Julius squeezes with his knees, clamping his arms to his sides. Abruptly Alex seems to realise that movement will only waste oxygen and goes still. He closes his eyes, refusing to look Julius in the face, and his jaw is clenched.

_You should relax_, Julius thinks. _Tense up and you'll run out of breath faster_. He tightens his hands around Alex's neck until his muscles are locked and shaking and he is sure no air can possibly get through. The thrum of blood beneath his palms is so arousing it might as well be pumping straight into his cock. At that moment Alex jerks, hard, his body instinctively fighting against the squeezing hands.

'You're dying,' Julius whispers. Alex presses his head back into the carpet and arches his neck up; Julius forced him back down. 'You're alive when you first hold your breath, but then you're struggling, then you're fainting, then you're…' The word sticks in his throat. 'You're on the way now. You're dying, you're dying, you're dying…'

Alex's mouth moves in a wordless gasp. Julius moans and for a moment his eyes flutter shut, but he forces them open again so that he can watch everything; watch how Alex's back arches and his fingers curl, how his chest moves up and down as his lungs draw on nothing, how the pink of his lips is being slowly tinted with delicate violet. His eyes roll back into his head, and Julius gives a gasp and lets go.

Alex barely has time to drag in one huge, rasping breath before Julius is flipping him over, forcing him face-down on the floor, scrabbling with one hand to get his trousers down. He loops his arms under Alex's shoulders, drags them as close as they can get and presses his hard-on between the cheeks of Alex's ass, grinding hard and fast. He clamps his right hand over Alex's mouth and presses his own face into Alex's shoulder, so that both their voices are muffled. Alex's arms are free now; he props his torso up of the floor, spine bent like a curved bow, and his nails rake the carpet as his fingers curl inwards. Somewhere through the hot fog Julius becomes aware that Alex's hips are grinding into the carpet independently of his own thrusts; he lets go Alex's mouth and forces his hand down between him and the floor, groping until his fingers close around Alex's erection. It can't have felt good to rub against the rough carpet. Maybe the things Julius insists on doing don't leave him quite as cold as he maintains.

A few more hard thrusts and he explodes, coming messily over Alex's lower back and into the fabric of his shirt, his hand around Alex's cock curled tight against the throes of release, jerking him until he feels his body spasming too and oh, shit, they've got come all over the carpet.

For a few moments Julius rests on his elbows over Alex, panting. He pulls his hand up from between Alex's legs and places it in his hair, holding his head down. The hair gleams dull gold in the low electric light.

'I need to kill you,' Julius says. Alex doesn't stir; perhaps his breath caught a little, but he's breathing so raggedly anyway that's it's hard to tell. Julius says it again.

'I need to kill you. I don't need you dead, I need to kill you. I needed it so bad; I needed _this_…thank you.' And he's rolling Alex over so that he can kiss his face, his hair, his jawline, his fast-bruising neck, and further down beneath his shirt all the beautiful, beautiful scars that make them look different. 'Thank you, Alex, thank you, thank you…' Alex is almost still beneath him, shifting to receive the kisses but otherwise not reacting, the deep, heavy rhythm of his breathing still unchanged. After a moment Julius pulls back again to survey him.

Alex is looking up at him now, his dark eyes and once vacant and focussed. Julius knows he's easy to read: education, accomplishment and Alex; the balance of life and death. But what can he read in Alex? To Julius he is by sudden turns frustrating, beautiful, hateful, but the one thing he will always be is inscrutable. His thoughts are just as invisible as the molecules in the air, and you can't choke him into being self-explanatory.

'I could have killed you,' he says; the suggesting of an event beyond either of their control rather than an assertion of power. His tone makes Alex crack half a smile. 'Why do you let me do this?'

'Because I feel so safe when you stop,' Alex says simply.

His gaze has gone from absent to a little too direct, and Julius rolls hastily off him and heads to the kitchen, though for what? A dishcloth? He doesn't know.

Behind him Alex sprawls on the rough carpet like a satisfied cat, clasping his hands behind his head.

'What can I say?' he asks, shrugging. 'I'm so awesome even my enemies can't kill me.'

Julius feels like throwing the washcloth at his head.

**A/N: Also FEEL THE COMPARISON BETWEEN ALEX AND THE AIR, GUYS! **


	3. Juice of the Poppy, part 1

**Juice of the Poppy, part one**

**Disclaimer: **Why does Julius's canon characterisation suck so much…wait, that's not a disclaimer. I don't own this stuff, guys.

**A/N: Yeah, more rambling about Julius. I feel like I rushed this and also like I'm not making it angsty enough and not making Julius evil enough, because I have a mind that tends towards sweetness and light and let's face it, he is pretty evil, so what I would really like from any hypothetical lurking readers is some analysis of the psychology and emotional dynamics in this chapter. Kthnksbai.**

Adolph was fizzing in his seat, bubbling over with excitement as the mountains rolled back and the city appeared behind them. Crammed in shoulder to shoulder with him in the helicopter, Julius could feel him trembling.

'Be calm,' he whispered sternly. 'You'll never be any use to father if you can't even deal with a little thing like this. It's only a town.'

But he was having a hard time controlling his own shaking.

He hadn't lived his whole life at Point Blanc, of course. They'd spent time shooting and driving in the outback of Australia, hacking through the Amazon jungle and hiding with pens and paper in an abandoned house in the back streets of Chile, scribbling down and translating all the Spanish they could catch through the thin walls. But this was only the third time he had been allowed to show himself in the middle of the city, and the first time he would be allowed to be unsupervised by Doctor Grief himself. In the past he had gone alone or in a pair with one of his brothers, and they had been with their father or with Mrs Stellenbosch the entire time. Going with her was a penance – she was always shouting, ordering, disciplining from behind a cloud of cigar smoke. But going somewhere with Doctor Grief to be taught about the new environment was special, the only chance they ever got to be more than one among sixteen. Carefully coaxed, he might talk about science, about his plans for the future and about how special their genes were. He might even give a modicum of praise. Even if he never deviated from the lesson in hand, being taught alone by him was fantastic.

It was fantastic, but to get to go _alone_…

The helicopter landed on the pad of the hotel that the academy owned. Here no unfriendly eyes would see the incredible sight: sixteen boys, the oldest nearly fourteen, the youngest just nine, all as nearly identical as the rapid changes of childhood would allow, jumping out of the helicopter to line up, dead straight, in front of their master and creator.

Doctor Grief paced slowly down the line. Julius stood to attention, his heart pounding. He hoped they had done it right. Apparently the line was satisfactory, because Doctor Grief came to a halt, ceased his examination and spoke.

'Pair up.'

Immediately the boys turned towards one another to follow the instruction. They were not like little schoolchildren squabbling over partners; if one person paired up before you reached them, you turned to someone else. They read one another so well that there was barely even any need for that; the sixteen boys simply fell into eight pairs – a double straight line instead of a single one.

In theory Julius shouldn't have cared who he was partnered with, since they were all supposed to be the same man and to eventually adopt a completely false personality, but he was glad that Adolph, young and tiresome, was paired with Alexander rather than him. He was also, deep down, pleased that he himself was with Genghis.

Doctor Grief surveyed the line again. The boys had paired up in vague correspondence to their ages, the youngest partnered with the older and more experienced, who could seem like older brothers, while the ones closest in age would pass as ordinary twins. This time Doctor Grief gave a tiny nod of satisfaction.

Then his eyes stopped on Julius.

Julius's blood seemed to freeze, just for a split-second. He knew that the tiniest mistake would not be tolerated. They had to be perfect. Genghis was the first of the clones, and it had taken Doctor Grief almost three years, watching the health and developing intelligence of the child and deciding on what to do now he had succeeded once, before he had settled on producing fifteen more in quick succession. Genghis was the oldest, the most knowledgeable by far, and he should have been looking after the least experienced. Julius was one of the youngest, arguably a suitable partner, but he knew that Genghis should really have been partnered with Adolph. Adolph had never been into a city before; he would need guidance.

Julius was also afraid that Doctor Grief would see how much he didn't want to swap partners.

However, with a cold flicker of the eyes his father released him, and Julius heaved an inward sigh of relief, though he didn't dare do so out loud. Adolph was with Alexander, who at eleven was the second-oldest. He had been into the city alone before. They would be fine.

'The object of today's lesson,' Doctor Grief said, speaking clearly, 'is tracking and observation. At the front of the hotel, I will send you off a pair at a time, pointing out to each of you a mark whom you are to follow. You are to stay on the tail of that mark until five o'clock this afternoon, after which time you will have an hour to return across the city to the hotel. During the day, you are to gather as much information as possible on your mark – their job, their habits, their family – and report what you have learned back to me, explaining how you might use this information to kill them.'

He reached into his pocket and produced a leather wallet. 'You will have to buy tickets for the bus and the tram; you may have to take a cab. If you get into any difficulties, you are to telephone the hotel. I trust you all remember my explanation of how to use a payphone?'

Julius's head swam. Money. He was giving them _money._

One boy from each group came forward to collect his share of crisp notes, and a handful of coins for the telephone. It seemed only natural that Genghis should be the one to fetch theirs. He moved just a little differently from the others, with a walk that was bold and swaggering. All the boys tried to catch their father's eye as they took their money, and all of them failed, except for Genghis. It seemed to Julius that a tiny flash of recognition passed between them.

'Now follow Mrs Stellenbosch,' Doctor Grief said.

Mrs Stellenbosch led them round to the front of the hotel. Julius's stomach flipped as he glimpsed the bustling street beyond.

'Napoleon, Mao,' she said, beckoning. She pointed to the road. 'The man in the grey trench coat. Adolph and Alexander. The youth with the starry hat and loosely fastened jeans.'

Two more pairs were called, and then him and Genghis. 'The woman with the briefcase.'

'C'mon,' Genghis muttered, and the two of them hurried out into the street and followed the woman.

She stepped almost immediately into a metro station, and Julius watched her tensely while Genghis handed over the money for an all-access ticket as quickly as they could. Then they ran down the escalator to keep up with their target. Julius knew that they were failing to remain inconspicuous and he felt as though there was a neon sign above his head blaring 'criminal! Criminal!' But he had forgotten one of the many obscure laws that governed the outside world: that it is expected, though frowned upon, that young boys will run on escalators. They got into the train carriage without mishap.

'Genghis, what can you tell about her from her clothing?' Julius whispered. 'Genghis?'

'You know, I wasn't called that before he got the idea of naming them all after great conquerors. I wasn't called anything. There was no one else.'

The 'no one' seemed to stretch beyond 'no one else at the academy.' Julius shivered. But at least Genghis hadn't said, 'naming _you_ all.' It seemed Julius was going to be included with him for the moment.

The train stopped and the woman got up. Julius and Genghis jumped to their feet and followed. They tailed the woman until she turned onto one of the other platforms, but Genghis kept going.

'She went that way!' Julius called, jogging to keep up.

'Yes, but we're going this way.'

'We're supposed to be following her!'

'What's the point?' Genghis turned, walking half-backwards so that he could speak straight to Julius. She's just a boring average woman with a boring average job. Nobody would ever want to assassinate her; we can make something up.' He could see that Julius was opening his mouth to argue, and held up his ticket. 'Besides, we can't follow her any more. I only paid our fair up to this station. Sorry.'

There were any number of things Julius could have said to that – and he also knew that he shouldn't say anything, but should just turn around and follow the woman on his own – but instead he asked feebly, 'why here?'

'Because this station comes out near the best coffee shop in the whole city.'

'Coffee shop?' Julius echoed stupidly.

'Yes. He used to spoil me, you know.' Genghis led the way up into the sunlight and along the street, where a sweet smell was filling the air.

'Genghis –'

'Come on, Julius! We've got free time, we've got money, nobody's watching us. Sure, Mrs Stellenbosch will be mad, but dad wants us to think for ourselves. He didn't become what he is today by obeying the rules.' He held up their three bank notes. 'Coffee!'

Julius swallowed, then nodded. 'Alright.'

Genghis beamed at him and pushed open the door to the café.

They chose a small table at the back and sat down. A waitress came over, offering an illustrated menu.

Julius had never looked into the face of an oblivious stranger before. His emotions hovered somewhere between contempt and fear.

'Julius, they don't _know_, the idiots!' Genghis whispered. 'Smile at them!'

Julius obeyed. It didn't feel right on his face, but the waitress smiled warmly back. He supposed that to her he must look like a shy little boy. It wasn't an altogether pleasant realisation, but he told himself not to be silly. His age could be a weapon.

Genghis, who had seemed so completely in charge up until now, was already scanning the menu with boyish excitement. Julius looked down at his own menu. He knew what most of the things meant: _tarte au citron,_ _mille-feuille_, _linzer torte, gateau au chocolat_, but he couldn't tell how he would distinguish one cake from another.

'What do I have?' he said.

'You _choose_,' Genghis exclaimed. 'Duh!'

Julius bit his lip. He remembered the Russian roulette that mealtimes had been ever since he could sit up to the table, goo dish following bad until he no longer bothered to distinguish between what he liked and what he didn't. He remembered being soundly scolded for describing a peach as 'nice,' being told that he was not to have favourites until the time came to adopt those of the boy whose life he would steal. He remembered crying the first time Mrs Stellenbosch put a piece of raw chilli on his tongue. He tried to balance all that against the concept of _choosing_.

Genghis had already picked out the stickiest and most chocolaty thing he could find, but Julius knew what chocolate tasted like, although they didn't get it often. He stared down the list of names that suddenly seemed almost like poetry, searching for a fruit or flavour he'd once liked. It was hard, now, to remember the preferences he had learned to repress. Something he hadn't tried before, then. His eyes fell on the entry: _lemon and poppy-seed cake_.

'I'll have that,' he said, pointing.

'Right.' Genghis waved to the waitress. Julius wondered how he could do this so easily; he only felt like a sixteenth of himself without his brothers. Maybe Genghis was right; maybe they would learn more sitting in a coffee shop than chasing a stranger. They were supposed to pretend to be ordinary people in the end, after all.

'We'll have a slice of the chocolate and coffee gateau,' Genghis said to the waitress, and for a moment Julius wanted to scream at him to stop. They only had one chance at this; what if he'd chosen wrong? What if the best cake in the shop was the one above or the one below? 'And one of the lemon and poppy-seed cake.'

'The lemon and poppy-seed?' the waitress said. 'Best cake in the shop.'

Julius felt a warm gush of something inside him. The waitress smiled warmly at him, and he almost managed to smile back.

'And two cappuccinos, please,' Genghis said, snapping the menu shut.

'I thought you said I could choose,' Julius hissed as the waitress walked away.

'You can choose what kind of sugar you put in it,' Genghis said, shrugging.

The waitress brought a tray with two slices of cake and two frothy, wobbling cups of coffee. Genghis's slice had so many layers he could barely get his mouth around it. Julius's was smaller, and so densely packed with poppy seeds that it was blueish-black.

Julius carefully raised the brimming coffee cup and took a sip. The froth, covered in chocolate powder, was sweet and delicious, but when he got down to the coffee underneath it made him gag, and it was so hot that it made his tongue feel rough and sore.

'Sugar,' Genghis said with his mouth full of cake.

Julius poured three sachets of brown sugar into the coffee and stirred, but that seemed to make the bubbles go.

'Damn it, they're all popping…' he said, trying to bite down on the feeling that he was going to cry.

'There's a technique for stirring sugar into cappuccino, but never mind. Just skim the foam off and eat it first. Here you go.' Genghis scooped a teaspoon of froth off his own coffee and held it out to Julius.

Then Julius tried a forkful of his cake.

The first thing that hit him was the perfume. Before he could taste the lemons, before he had even bitten down, he could smell their zest. Then he slid the cake off the fork and let it settle on his tongue, tasting a musty sweetness, a faint nuttiness, the richness of butter and a tang of lemon juice not strong enough to overwhelm the rest…then he bit down, and his teeth went through the poppy seeds in an explosion of crackles, releasing their flavour twice as powerfully while the butter lingered sleekly on his tongue. He chewed slowly and swallowed.

His choice of cake.

While Genghis attacked his food like a dog let off the leash, Julius ate slowly, savouring every mouthful. There was so _much_ flavour in that cake. He chewed each mouthful over carefully, trying to unravel it.

'Not bad, huh?' Genghis said, grinning. He tapped his own plate with his fork. 'Try some.'

It was delicious, sponge moist, chocolate rich and intense. Julius was glad he had chosen the poppy cake. He took a tentative sip of the coffee, which was just about bearable now it had all that sugar in it, experimenting to see how it changed the taste of the cake.

Genghis sniggered at his serious expression, then picked up a sachet of sugar and emptied it straight into his mouth. With an almost hysterical giggle, Julius did the same.

'Well, dad gave us plenty of money,' Genghis said when they'd finished their slices, rattling the change in his pocket. 'We might as well have another one.'

'No, I've had enough.'

'Come on, you get to try something different.'

'This cake is my friend,' Julius said, making light of it. 'We have a special relationship. I don't want to try a different one.'

'Well, I'm having something else, anyway,' Genghis said, leaning back in his chair with a note held in the air. Julius smiled to himself, sipping at the coffee that was getting sweeter the closer he got to the bottom of the cup, and pressing his forefinger to his plate to pick up the stray poppy seeds. Faced with freedom, Genghis was trying as many things as possible, while he himself tried to thoroughly savour one. Maybe they weren't completely identical after all.

* * *

><p>'You are lying to me.'<p>

Genghis stuck out his chin. 'It's the truth! We followed her on the train and then took a look around her office. It would have been easy to push her off the fire escape.'

'This sounds…very general, Genghis,' Doctor Grief said.

Genghis sneered. 'That's because most people _are_ general. They're average.'

There was a crack as Doctor Grief struck him across the face. It was an elegant gesture; the hand knocked Genghis's head to the side and followed through its smooth arc, coming to rest raised in front of its owners face with the white fingers neatly curled. Doctor Grief examined the hand that had done the work for a moment, and then turned to Julius.

'What do you think, Julius?' he asked. 'Tell me what you think of your brother's hypothesis that all human beings are similar, to the point where the details of a mark's day can be so easily guessed that a false account will not differ from a true one.'

Julius took a deep breath. 'It is true,' he said, 'that the majority of human beings are motivated by instincts and desires which they hold in common. By understanding these motives we can manipulate human nature, and save time by predicting a person's reactions. However, we should never let these general trends blind us to possible anomalies, lest we be taken by surprise.'

'Eloquently put, my son,' Doctor Grief said. Behind him, Mrs Stellenbosch blew out cigar smoke in a breath of derision. _How dare you scorn me?_ Julius thought. _What are you_ –?

'Tell me, Julius,' Doctor Grief went on, almost gently, 'what did you and your brother do today?'

'We told you.' Julius swallowed and caught Genghis's eye, hoping – against hope – that their father would not notice the glance. He wished Doctor Grief would go back to asking Genghis, let him sink quietly into the shadows behind him. He felt thoroughly unequal to the task which his brother's eyes were pleading from him. _Don't tell_. 'We followed her on the train –'

'All the time you were away?' Doctor Grief slid the coins and notes he had reclaimed from them in his palm, and extracted the railway ticket from amongst them. 'This ticket is only valid for a short journey.'

'She took a cab.'

'Where to?' Doctor Grief asked softly. Julius named an address.

Doctor Grief held out the money, weighing it in his hand. 'Julius, to take such a journey by cab would cost considerably more than you have spent. Now tell me what you did today.'

Julius licked his lips. He had never lied to his father before. Without Genghis shielding him, the walls, the fire and his own flesh seemed to be sinking into darkness around him, leaving the cogs of his mind laid bare to the red-tinted eyes fixed unwaveringly on his face.

'We went to a _café._'

The words seemed to be wrenched from him. Genghis grimaced.

Doctor Grief nodded. 'Your breath smells of coffee.'

Without needing a prompting gesture, Mrs Stellenbosch stepped forward and placed her hand on Genghis's shoulder, steering him towards the door. Julius could imagine how the light contact would hum with the threat of her terrible strength – so terrible that a touch was all the threat it needed. He felt a rush of bitterness. Why could _she_ serve their father so easily, knowing exactly when to step forward and when to be silent, cuffing them into line and treated as an _equal_, while he, Grief's own flesh and blood, was always struggling, never good enough? _I will not cry,_ he thought stubbornly. _I will not cry…_

Mrs Stellenbosch led Genghis through into the adjoining room and closed the door, and Julius realised with a jolt that he was alone with his father. Despite the situation, he couldn't stop his heart from lurching and his palms from sweating with a different kind of fear than the one that waited in the next room. He wanted to say something, something dazzling that would make Doctor Grief speak back and prove that he was ready, but his tongue seemed to stick to the roof of his mouth. He could hardly draw breath.

From the other room, there was a thwack and a yell.

'What did he do wrong, Julius?' Doctor Grief asked.

'He screamed,' Julius muttered. The raising of an eyebrow prompted him to continue. 'He should try to build his endurance. To be ready to suffer pain in the name of self-improvement, to conceal weakness from those who will be his enemies…and in this case, to accept the pain he is experiencing as the just consequence of his actions.'

'Did you really think you could lie to me?' Doctor Grief said. 'Do you think I don't know what you look like when you lie?' He touched his own face lightly. For a moment they stared at one another, and Julius, his heart racing, felt that somehow he had stumbled into the proof-of-equality he had been searching for. He was meeting his father's eyes. But he didn't understand what he had done. To achieve the moment of connection, and to feel lost and failing even in the middle of it…that was bitterness. Doctor Grief was still staring at him, still touching his own face, and Julius didn't even try to fathom his expression.

For him, after all, to be surrounded by sixteen mimicking faces was normal life. It would not be until much later that he would feel shock, let alone doubt.

And now Mrs Stellenbosch opened the door and called sweetly:

'Julius!'

With leaden steps he turned away from his father and made his way through into the other room. His eyes immediately lighted on the heavy poker by the fireplace. That would probably be the instrument. Well, Mrs Stellenbosch wasn't about to break their bones. He could bear it.

'Bend over the side of the armchair, Julius,' Mrs Stellenbosch ordered.

Julius obeyed, settling his stomach against the plush arm of the chair, pressing his face into the rough fabric while he calmed himself. He frowned, trying to weigh the reckless hour of fun in the café against the bleakness of the present. In the afternoon he had enjoyed the cake, in the evening he had ratted. Did that mean that he no longer wanted the afternoon? If not, was he the same person he had been earlier that day? Did people change their skins this easily all the time, hopping from one chance or danger to the next?

There had been no choosing between his brother and his father, he reminded himself sternly. They were all the same; the only choice was to be for or against the cause. A miscreant was like a cancer to be treated in the body; Genghis was only lucky that he hadn't been cut out completely.

Mrs Stellenbosch seemed to be taking an inordinately long time fetching the poker, but now Julius heard her tread, and when he raised his head slightly out of the armchair he saw why. The tip was glowing cherry red from the fire.

_She won't burn me badly_, he thought. _There's only so many scars the plastic surgeons can deal with. Genghis wasn't shrieking…_

_Maybe she didn't do the same thing to Genghis. Maybe I'm not good enough._

'You have been a disgrace to the Doctor's DNA today, Julius,' Mrs Stellenbosch said. 'I hope this will remind you of your high aim and the rigour which will be required to achieve it.'

And something inside Julius snapped tight. He would take his beating as silently as he could, he would be sorry and he would never fail to carry out an exercise again, but he didn't believe that he would ruin his father's plan by eating a slice of cake. The tiny judgement burned in him, his mind's answer to the poker.

As the rod swished through the air towards him, Julius was fishing out the left-behind poppy seeds and cracking them between his teeth.

**A/N: Rebellious Julius is rebellious! Did I get the dependence and worship? Also, I forgot in chapter two that the main purpose of continuing the fic was to reply to my reviewers, all of whom are anonymous apart from one whom I know in person, so here goes:**

**ANON: **Seems you came back twice, so…beautiful? Wow, thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying it so much. Do you have an account? Can you sign in so that I can return the favour reviewing-wise?

**Um: **You know, the first time I read a smutfic I reviewed anonymously, same as you. I thought that reviews you'd left got listed on your account and that my mother might somehow find out. I wasn't as polite as you, either; I basically told them that their writing was good but that the content was way too explicit and they should tone it down. Clearly I've changed my tune since then. It was actually a pretty good fic; I can link you to it if you like. Anyway, OOC, AU. Uh…^^;, I'm afraid so, but I'm glad that you enjoyed it despite that. Thanks for your kind words, and I hope you'll sign in if you review again.

**True xxx**


	4. The Highs

**Chapter 4: The Highs**

**Disclaimer: **I own whatever I can steal ;-).

**A/N: **_"Grief's face darkened. 'You have no idea what's coming your way. I'm in charge; I'm the one who says what you do' Suddenly, as if changing his mind, he took out a mobile. 'All right,' he went on. 'You can talk to Jack. But only if you ask me nicely. You have to say please.'_

'_Please may I speak to Jack?' Alex measured out the words. _

'_Get on your knees.'_

_Grief was taunting him with the phone. But Alex had to know if Jack was alive. He knelt down in the dust. _

'_From now on, you call me sir,' Grief continued. 'And you only speak to me when you're spoken to. Do you understand?'_

'_Yes.'_

_The phone slammed into the side of Alex's head, almost knocking him off his knees. He swayed and reached out to steady himself against a tomb. _

'_Do you understand?'_

'_Yes, sir.' "_

**And I break into S&M by Rihanna. You see? Not a very original setup, maybe, but the will is there! This pairing is totally canon.**

'Lot of hot-air balloons about today,' Wolf remarked.

He was sitting with his old unit at one of the outdoor tables of a London café, shovelling lunch into his mouth. The food was uninspiring to say the least, but the beer was good, it was one of the first nice days of the year, and the SAS lads were always good company, so on the whole he felt at peace with the world.

'Some kind of gala going on or something,' Fox said, chewing.

'Since when were you interested in ballooning?'

'I have to read up on all the local news for Special Operations. Say if someone wanted to chuck bombs on London out of a balloon or something, I'd have to be aware of that threat.'

'That might possibly happen,' Wolf conceded. He looked up again. The balloons – outdated flying machines – were ridiculous…and yet there was something ridiculously appealing about them too. The ribbed envelopes arched like cathedrals, and they were so attractively shaped and brightly coloured that a child would have wanted to put one in its mouth.

'Bit of a breezy day for it,' he said. As if to prove his point a gust of wind puffed leaves and wrappers along the pavement around their feet, and the balloons above them swayed. 'Getting buffeted about a bit up there, I should think.'

'They are swaying quite a lot,' Eagle said, shading his eyes. 'Hey, look at that one there.' He pointed to a balloon that was candy-striped red, blue and green. 'It's really rocking.'

'D'you reckon they're crashing?' Snake asked, not sounding particularly interested.

'Possibly. Don't know what a crashing hot-air balloon looks like, really.'

'Slow-motion,' Fox said, and they all nodded in agreement.

'Maybe they're doing it on purpose,' Snake said. 'Crashing the balloon, I mean. Over London. Hot-air balloon terrorists. That'd be a new one.' He tipped his head back on his chair, gazing up at the balloon floating almost over their heads. 'I bet they're having fun up there.'

* * *

><p>'Are you sure it's legal for us to be flying this thing?' Alex asked.<p>

'On the contrary,' Julius answered from the other side of the basket, where he was busy doing something with ropes and buckles, 'I'm almost sure that it's _not _legal. But a friend of mine in orchestra's dad had a balloon and I told him I knew planes and helicopters and had read about balloons and done A level physics and engineering and shit, so he said we could. So it's not stealing, is my point.'

'Uh-huh. So, Mr Six-A-Stars, what does this button do?'

'Strengthens the burner flame.'

'Oh.' Alex pressed the button – or rather, turned the lever – and a blue tongue of flame went roaring up into the cavity of the balloon above. 'Cool. Don't you dare stick my head in there.'

Julius just snorted and busied himself with the ropes again, so Alex decided he was probably safe for the moment. He leaned against the side of the basket, which seemed to support his weight alright, and spoke again.

'So, why this particular pastime for a Saturday afternoon? I mean, not that it isn't fun, but I'm sure we could have found something more illegal if we'd put our minds to it.'

'We can't _just_ go around breaking BDSM laws, Alex,' Julius said. 'We have to have projects and things, too.'

'I see. So, what's today's "project?"'

'To cure your phobia of hot-air balloons.'

Alex blinked. 'I have a phobia of hot-air balloons?'

'Duh. You've had bad experiences with them. First encounter with Scorpia? Julia Rothman? That mission with the cyanide injections and the microwave beams that you moan on about _ad nauseam_ whenever you've had half a pint of beer (I can really see why you don't normally drink, by the way). You obviously have deep emotional scars when it comes to hot-air balloons.'

'Ah, I remember.' Alex smiled. 'It was actually quite fun – not the whole fight-to-the-death thing, but the balloon ride itself.'

'But still, the overall experience was traumatic.'

Alex met Julius's eyes. 'I'm pretty sure I don't have a phobia of hot-air balloons.'

'Well, obviously it's repressed. These things often are; my psychologist explained it all to me. You have to face up to it and…' deep, heroic breath… '_conquer_ it.'

'Alright.' Alex sighed. 'So, how are we going to set about conquering my fear of balloons?'

'Easy.' Julius turned and crouched down next to the chest of mysterious bits and pieces of equipment in the corner of the basket, pulling it open to rummage inside. 'We're going to replace your original, bad balloon-related experience with a good one.'

'I see.'

'It's all about positive connotations. You need to learn to stop associating hot-air balloons with criminal gangs and start associating them with something…else instead.'

'What did you have in mind?' Alex asked. Julius turned around. He was holding two condoms in one hand and a bottle of lubricant in the other.

Alex crinkled his eyebrows. 'Seriously?'

'Why not?' Julius was already unbuttoning his trousers. 'It doesn't matter if we're not paying attention. This thing flies itself.'

'Really? It does? And here I thought you were being _clever_.'

'Shut up, Rider,' Julius said roughly. He crossed the basket in two strides and grabbed Alex round the back of the neck, crushing their lips together.

Alex's body responded to the kiss even as his mind recoiled, as it still did a little from time to time; the whole thing was so weird. That was one of the advantages of being a teenage boy: the hormones meant that you could just roll with these things. Kissing and groping felt good; never mind that Julius still looked shockingly similar to him despite the raspberry hair and the eyeliner and the growing his face had done since the original surgery, or the fact that he had never thought of himself as kinky before the start of this relationship, or that he still didn't even know for sure if he was gay or not. _What do I want him for, his cock or his crazy?_ There were so many tangled and complex reasons for doing what they did; he couldn't even begin to make them tell him anything about himself.

Julius was kissing down his neck now, not biting too much today – just a few light nips to liven things up a little. Alex leaned back against the side of the basket, gazing up at the balloon above them. The curving arch seemed almost to leap upwards, vivid in motion, yet at the same time the whole contraption was serenely still, in no hurry. It was the perfect setting in which to contemplate such matters as making out with your worst enemy. A phobia of hot-air balloons indeed. They both knew he was humouring Julius, letting him pretend that their relationship was about banishing both their demons, not just his – but Alex wondered if there might not be more truth in Julius's statement than had appeared at first glance. The ride on the balloon hadn't been that bad, but other things certainly had, and sometimes, when he was sitting quietly, Alex wondered whether he wasn't just as messed up as Julius, deep down. Where were his emotional scars? Probably repressed, just like Julius had said, otherwise he would be in a nice, stable relationship with some girl from uni. He imagined trying to follow all the carefully constructed rules of dating, not saying anything too weird or pushing for too much too soon, and contrasted it with the absolute freedom of floating a thousand feet above London in a not-exactly stolen balloon, fucking with Julius, who wouldn't have cared if he _had_ had a phobia of balloons – except that he would have mocked him about it.

_At least Julius_ admits_ he has issues_, Alex thought. _I claim to hate the whole s-and-m thing and I still come back for more. Which one of us does that make more fucked up?_

'Alex, are you paying attention?' Julius's voice cut through his thoughts.

'Sorry. Zoned out for a moment there.'

'Zoned out? Of kissing? God, you're such a bloody old woman.'

Alex rolled his eyes at the insult, and then Julius was spinning him round and pressing his chest into the side of the basket, leaning into him from behind while his hands searched for the zipper on Alex's jeans. Alex looked down, which made his stomach lurch, took a pre-emptive grip on the edge of the basket in case Julius should take it into his head to try and throw him over, and then gazed out at the panorama of fluffy white clouds and bobbing balloons at slightly different heights.

'I think the people in the next balloon are staring at us,' he said.

'Give them a wave,' Julius said, nipping at his neck.

'Doesn't this count as public sex?'

'If a space a thousand feet above the ground and a quarter of a mile away from the nearest group of people is public, then yes.'

'Jules, people can see us!'

'They could see us if they looked through a pair of binoculars, and if they were doing that they'd obviously be spying and they'd deserve to be traumatised. Now shut up.'

He bit Alex hard on the shoulder, and Alex moaned, throwing his head back. Julius was right. There was plenty of space up here. Alex had never felt surrounded by so much of it. Julius's hand cupped his throat, stroking; Alex felt his breathing quicken as things started to wake up down below. Julius had got his jeans and boxers down around his thighs. The hand on Alex's neck disappeared as he fumbled with the lubricant, and then he pushed two slippery fingers between Alex's thighs. Alex twisted on them as they pressed upwards, trying to adjust. His cock twinged, he bucked forward, Julius wrapped an arm around his waist to hold his still. Alex pressed down onto his fingers instead; prep was a pain, but right now he would take anything that led to him getting off quicker.

'Keen today, aren't we?' Julius said, smirking.

'Whatever,' Alex said. 'Just don't dick me around today.'

'Bitch,' Julius breathed, his fingers working, stretching…Alex growled, grinding back against him, and then the fingers withdrew and he heard the rustle of the condom being torn open. He waited impatiently until he felt Julius's hands on his hips, then seized one of them and pulled it up under his shirt. Julius understood what he wanted and began to rub one of his nipples as he pushed into him from behind.

'Ow!' Alex winced, his knuckles whitening on the basket-edge.

'Don't be such a _pansy_,' Julius said, more breathless than scornful.

'Your face is a pansy,' Alex grunted. Julius's arms went tight around him, pulling them together, as Julius began to thrust.

Alex slumped back against him, sucking in deep breaths from his belly in time with their movement. It was so unconventional, and so dangerous, and so weird, and so free, and all that was what made it agonisingly erotic. Never mind that Julius was too much of a bastard to even jerk Alex off while he took what he wanted. You couldn't have everything in a partner.

'For God's sake, brace yourself better!' Julius gasped. 'You're like a dead fish…'

'I'm sorry…' Alex took a fresh hold on the edge of the basket, pulling himself out of his haze a little to think. 'I'm sorry, sir.'

Julius slowed. 'The fuck?'

'I'm sorry.' Alex leaned his head back on Julius's shoulder, reaching his hands awkwardly around him to massage his ass. 'Please, sir, show me how to be better for you –'

'What the hell are you talking about?' Julius demanded, stopping completely.

Alex looked at him sidelong from under his lashes. 'Remember when you told me to –'

'Oh, _God_,' Julius exploded, and suddenly Alex was standing with his back and arse exposed to the cold wind and no Julius behind him.

'_What?_' he whined, flopping against the side of the basket. He turned around to face Julius, who was up beside the burner, as far away as he could get in a car barely five paces wide. 'Get back here! What's the problem?'

'Rider, that's horrible. _Shut up_.'

'What?' Alex said again.

'Don't bloody well call me sir!'

'Remember in Egypt? You told me to call you sir. You _liked_ it.'

'Yes, but that…' Julius brought a hand to his forehead. 'That was then, alright? And this is now.'

'And what's the difference?'

'Look.' Julius dropped his hand and gave Alex a black look. 'If that was happening now, I would think of something much, much better to make you do than call me sir, understand?' He tried to look menacing, but Alex was fighting back a smirk. 'Don't make me feel like the most pathetic cliché in the history of S and M.'

Alex considered this. He would have dearly loved to have a good laugh, but right now there were more important things to think about, like persuading Julius to finish up.

'I see what you mean,' he sighed, puffing out his cheeks. 'But…supposing it wasn't you being pathetic and cliché? What if it was me? What if I really wanted to talk to you that way, and 'sir' was the best word I could think of to do it?'

'Sounds like you alright,' Julius muttered. 'No imagination.'

'I try my best.' Alex took a step towards Julius, holding out one hand as though towards a nervous animal. 'Let me try for you…sir.' Julius glared past him, refusing to meet his eyes, but at least he didn't shout this time. Alex stood in front of him, put his hand on the side of his face and kissed his cheek. Then he got carefully down on his knees.

That provoked a reaction – a just-audible breath. Julius was adorable when he got all bashful like this. Alex pushed up the hem of his shirt and planted a kiss on his belly, hiding his smile, then reached into his trousers for his half-hard cock.

'I wanna make it good for you,' he murmured. 'Please, sir, please…'

'This sounds like some terrible student-teacher roleplay,' Julius grumbled.

'Oooh, we should totally do that sometime!' Alex exclaimed.

'Alex. You ruin the moment. Always.'

'_Master_.'

Julius moaned at that, and Alex bent forward to engulf him in his mouth. He closed his eyes and felt Julius's hands come to rest in his hair – gentle for once. He was pleased with the turn things had taken, even if it had involved some admittedly terrible play-acting, and even if it meant it was going to be forever before he would get seen to himself. It was nice to have Julius quiet for once, thighs soft and open beneath his hands, accepting a little pleasure quietly instead of taking roughly or giving obsessively. He worked his tongue rhythmically over the underside of Julius's cock; Julius gave the faintest of whines in the back of his throat. Alex coaxed him gently with his mouth and left hand, reaching down for his own hard-on with his right. He had hoped he had Julius sufficiently distracted to get away with touching himself at the same time, but no sooner did he try then he felt Julius's body spring back to alertness and his hands tighten in his hair, straining the roots.

'Oh, no you don't.' He pulled Alex's head back, stepping forward to half-straddle him and thrusting deeper into his mouth. Alex gagged a little, trying to swallow it. 'You get me off, you don't act without my permission, and you _obey_. Understood?'

Alex pulled away from Julius's groin with a gasp. 'Yes _sir_.' Then he looked up at Julius and grinned.

'I _knew_ this was still your kink.'

He was laughing aloud as Julius tackled him to the floor of the car, teeth aiming for his throat.

* * *

><p>'That balloon's really rocking quite hard now,' Eagle said, shading his eyes to look up at the striped envelope. 'D'you reckon they're in trouble?'<p>

'Probably having a party,' Wolf said, shrugging. 'Three foot-square balloon par_-tay_.'

'That sounds like fun,' Fox said, and the four of them propped their elbows on the table amongst the empty beer mugs and gazed up at the flock of balloons as they bobbed gently in the afternoon breeze.

**A/N: Oh, and by the way, listen to Mercy by Duffy with that scene I quoted at the start in mind and laugh. Laugh hard.**


	5. Juice of the Poppy, part 2

**Juice of the Poppy, part two**

**A/N: I think this would be an opportune moment to state a thing or two about the universe this is set in. First off, in this one Julius didn't kill Jack. I wouldn't expect Alex to forgive that. Instead, I'm envisaging something where in the end he passed up the chance to kill Alex and instead helped to save the day, not because he hated Alex any less but because he decided forgoing revenge would be a reasonable price to pay for a normal life. So MI6 said he could be released from prison provided he was kept under surveillance, and they gave him a house they owned with a landlady (which is where he and Alex were in the first chapter), and he goes to Alex's school…I don't know, maybe because having Alex keep an eye on him is simpler than having an agent tail him all the time, and if he was going to do something criminal it would be to try and kill Alex anyway, so Alex might as well be the one watching? I don't know. So they gradually give him more freedom as he continues to behave himself, and he and Alex learn to live with each other and eventually…**

**So, some of these are set while Alex and Julius are in their last year of school (eighteen years old), and others when they're in their first year of university. Apart from some obvious ones that are set when Julius was a tiny evil child :D.**

'_Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Julius, happy birthday to you!_'

Julius bent over the cake and blew, the way the others had told him to do. Eighteen candles-flames fluttered, and he kept blowing until he had snuffed them all out.

They were in Alex's house, which was a nicer place for a party than the MI6 house he lived in. There were just six of them there: him, Alex and his friends Tom, James and Sabina, and Jack. Julius never could feel comfortable around Jack, whom he had used as bait to get to Alex once. In fact, he didn't think he was going to enjoy this party at all. Still, he supposed, you had to start somewhere. Last year nobody had even suggested celebrating his birthday. Another tentative step towards normal life.

'Cut it, then,' Alex said.

Julius shot him a despairing look. 'I have to cut it too?'

'Yes, that's how it works.'

Julius sighed, but when he saw the implement he was supposed to cut with his interest quickened.

'Hey, you're letting me handle sharp things?' He snatched up the knife. 'Now…'

He glanced around menacingly, then immediately regretted it. Alex could take a joke, but Jack was visibly flinching.

'Look, just cut the cake,' Alex sighed.

Ducking his head, Julius pressed the knife down through the brown crust of the cake and into the exterior: a yellow, lemon-scented cake full of poppy-seeds.

He cut six careful slices, feeling a sudden rush of affection for this, his first ever birthday cake.

'Wish on the first bite!' Alex said, raising his slice.

Julius glared at him. 'You're making it up!'

'Honestly, I'm not.'

'I think you're supposed to wish when you blow the candles out _or _on the first bite, Alex,' Sabina said.

'What? Of course you can wish on the candles and the bite! I've always made two wishes!'

'No wonder you're such a brat, Alex,' Tom said, sniggering. He took a mouthful of the cake and chewed thoughtfully.

'Is it okay?' Jack asked. 'Did I get it right?'

'It's kind of…' Tom said, 'what's the word…? Austere for a birthday cake, but…'

'It's perfect,' Julius said emphatically.

'Oh.' Jack looked taken aback, but pleased. 'Thank you, Julius.'

'So, why this cake in particular?' James asked. Julius's stomach sank. Lemon and poppy-seed cake _was_ too austere for a party. They had probably expected whipped cream and grated chocolate. Cold trickles ran down his spine: the old, familiar fear of having chosen the wrong cake.

'It was the first cake I ever had,' he said offhandedly. 'Happy memories, you know?'

Apparently this was a satisfactory explanation – even if they were all itching to ask what happy memories he, the traumatised evil clone, could possibly have of his childhood.

They finished their cake, and Jack collected the empty plates and carried them into the kitchen. Tom, James and Sabina ran out into the back garden to kick the football around.

'Come on, guys!' Tom shouted.

'One minute!' Alex yelled back.

Julius was fidgeting with the napkins, making a vague pretext of stacking them up, but not really doing much more than keeping his hands busy. Alex lounged in the doorway and watched him; Julius could feel his eyes pricking him in the back of the neck.

'So,' Alex said casually, 'when did you have your first cake?'

'My big brother Genghis.' Julius got to his feet, pushed his chair in and lent against it. He stared thoughtfully at the remainder of the cake, sleek with butter, refreshingly perfumed, faintly nutty…how could Tom call a symphony like that _austere_? 'Dad – Doctor Grief – he paired us up and told us to spend the day stalking random people around the city as an exercise. Gave us money, you know? We didn't get out much. And Genghis…after my father managed to clone himself for the first time, he had to wait for a while, to decide exactly how to proceed, see if the baby would grow up healthy…Genghis was three years older than the rest of us.'

'So he had a bit more perspective on things?' Alex guessed.

Julius smiled. 'He was a bit of a rebel. We were in a pair, and he dragged me off to get cakes and coffee instead. Were we ever in trouble.'

'Big trouble?'

'Mrs Stellenbosch beat us with a poker. Remember her? I used to have scars from it, before…' He tailed off wistfully.

'Wow…' Alex said. 'All that for a piece of cake?'

Julius turned to look at him directly. 'Did you like it, Rider? What did it taste like?'

'Uh, lemon zest? And those little cracky things? It was alright. Why, what does it taste like for you?'

'Freedom.' Julius picked up the knife and cut a sliver off the cake. 'Not the crappy kind you have in this country, where everyone does more or less what they want and thinks exactly the same. The kind that's worth fighting for.'

'Wow,' Alex said again. 'I can see why you chose it.'

'Power of association,' Julius said, walking over to him. 'You'd be amazed what it can do. Taste again.'

He pushed the piece of cake into Alex's mouth. Alex's lips brushed his fingers, and he leaned in to kiss him, tonguing his lips apart to share the mouthful. He kissed until Alex pushed him away to chew and swallow.

'What does it taste like now?' he asked while Alex caught his breath.

Alex cocked an eyebrow. 'Like snogging with my worst enemy.'

'Om nom nom,' Julius muttered, leaning in to kiss him again.

Footfalls by the door had them both jumping apart. They turned to see Sabina stepping into the room for the last of the plates.

'Don't mind me, boys,' she smirked, gathering them up and closing the door behind her.

Julius made to follow her, but Alex grabbed him by the front of the shirt and yanked him back.

'Oy! She said not to mind her.' He looked Julius in the eye. 'And you are going to _enjoy_ your party, dammit.'

Julius pouted. 'Shan't.'

'Why not?' Alex sighed.

'_Me_, do what _you_ tell me to do?' Julius said. 'Think again, Alex Rider.'


	6. The Lows

**Chapter 6: The Lows**

**A/N: So chapter four was called 'The Highs' because it showed the best Alex and Julius's relationship gets, when Julius is in a happy mood. This one is called 'The Lows' because it shows the worst their relationship gets (except for when Julius is actively trying to kill Alex /shot). Warnings for incompetent S&M, and Juliusangst.**

**There was also meant to be all this complex stuff about how Julius kind of worships Alex, but it hasn't really worked out. Maybe because I was sleep-deprived every time I wrote some of it? Ah well, see how you like it, but it's a bit hardcore. For something written by a vanilla person.¬¬**

There were many larger and pleasanter houses than Julius's in which Brookland's sixth form students could have held and end-of-year party – Alex Rider's wedding cake Chelsea mansion, for one – but as soon as the awkward 'whose home are we going to trash?' silence had fallen, Julius had volunteered. He didn't care how much mess they made, and for a bunch of rowdy teenagers that benefit outweighed all other considerations, so everyone had quickly agreed. The house belonged to MI6, and he would positively enjoy watching his classmates throw up on the carpets.

Not the best frame of mind in which to start a party.

Julius was drinking a Soaring Angel – champagne and whiskey; the fastest way he knew of to get absolutely hammered. He downed half the glass in one and glowered over its rim at the cluster of students on the other side of the room.

Alex Rider was sitting in the crook of the sofa, one elbow leaning on its arm, holding a glass of _sirop de cerise _and lemonade. Lemonade! On a night when every other idiot his age would be doing his damnest to get drunk! Tom Harries was sitting beside him, talking fast and excitedly, high on the party. There were a few others around them: some girl in a tiny dress leaning against Tom's legs, a couple of boys lounging over the back of the sofa. Alex was leaning into the group, laughing with gay abandon. Normally he looked haunted enough that Julius could at least imagine he might be suffering inside, but not tonight. Tonight he was perfectly happy, and Julius knew that even though the doctors had measured their facial structures down to fractions of millimetres, there was no way he had ever looked like that. Good looks weren't something you just sprayed on out of a can. You had to know how to wear them, too.

Oh, he and Alex were _together_, yes. They were involved. They were even official, though they didn't advertise it. But even if he could make Alex want him, maybe even care for him; even though Alex felt he had to watch every minute of the day anyway, to make sure he wasn't about to go off on a rampage, it still wasn't the same. It wasn't the itch over his skin and in his peripheral vision that told Julius exactly where Alex was in the room and what he was doing every second they were together. It wasn't the buzz in the back of his brain that kept thoughts of him ticking over when they were apart. Alex _reminded_ himself to watch Julius, but at a party, having fun, he could forget. He could throw out a little gossamer of connection to any one of the hundred people in this room, and Julius was _chained _to him, sitting here drinking whiskey and watching his every move.

Alex threw back his head to laugh, and his hair gleamed in the dim light. He was insanely, heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Julius's stomach twisted; he gulped another mouthful of iced champagne, the sharp taste cutting the nausea a little. The alcohol burned a point of heat in the middle of his chest.

The girl was looking up to say something to the boys now. Something inane, no doubt, but Alex seemed to find it funny. Suddenly Julius's Soaring Angel changed from being something he was drinking to keep his hands busy to something so irrelevant that he wasn't even moved by the instinctive need to finish off the glassful. He set the glass aside, leaving ice cubes to melt in the last inch of liquid and dilute it into an undrinkable soup, and strode across the room.

He put his hand on Alex's shoulder once and shook, lightly. Alex turned, and the slight annoyance in his face at being cut off in the middle of speech was worth something to Julius; a tiny fraction of the revenge he should have had so long ago.

'Come on,' he said. Alex knew that he had to prioritise controlling Julius's mood swings over enjoying his own evening. He stood up without complaint, with just the right word and gesture to excuse himself from his friends, and followed Julius across the room, and out into the hall.

'What's up?' he asked, stopping at the foot of the stairs. He folded his arms and stuck out one hip.

Julius opened his mouth. He imagined pouring out all his frustrated anger in front of that put-out expression. Alex had heard it all before, anyway. _Julius_ had heard it all before, from himself. He shook his head once, grabbed Alex and kissed him.

Open-mouthed, messy, rough, and Alex, as always, was not kissing back hard enough. _It's all right, Rider, I know you don't want to be here…_ Julius twisted a hand savouringly into the long blond hair and jerked back, baring Alex's neck for his teeth.

'Look…' Alex pushed his face away, fingers sliding clumsily on his chin.

'Upstairs.' Julius's voice came out more desperate than he'd intended, but perhaps that was for the best. Alex often responded to need better than violence. 'Come upstairs.'

He began to climb backwards, but he couldn't pull himself away from that mouth for a moment. He dragged Alex up by the collar, kissing him constantly as he went.

'Jules…' Alex's voice was husky now.

Julius stopped on the landing. He buried his face in Alex's shoulder, screwing up his face against the tears that he felt sure were coming, then took a deep breath and swung Alex round into the wall. He didn't want him there, not tonight, but he knew that unless he braced him against something Alex would give when Julius pressed his hands with all his strength into his stomach muscles. Damn him, why did he never push back?

'What's brought this on?' Alex murmured. He sounded pleased, and Julius gave him a rough shake.

'Ach!' Alex hissed. 'Sorry; am I _missing_ the _mood_?'

'You don't like it? Fight it,' Julius snapped. He pushed Alex's shirt up to his collar bone, dug his nails into the bare skin and _raked_ back down. Alex shouted and pushed his hand away; Julius seized his chin, kissed him again and pulled him by the jaw into his bedroom.

He shut the door by the simple method of slamming Alex against it and attacked his mouth again.

'Oy, slow down, I didn't come here to be fucking _raped_ –'

'Do. I. Have. To. Beg?' Julius said. He leaned in, nose to nose. '_Fight!_'

Alex glared at him for a moment. Then, in a blur, he lashed out, socking Julius in the stomach. Julius doubled over, panting, then lunged at him, all nails and teeth. Alex knocked his arm away and slammed him squarely in the chest with his open palms. Julius let the impact knock him backwards onto the bed.

Alex followed and crawled slowly towards him, his eyes smouldering. _Oh_ no, not like that. Julius whipped upwards, teeth bared. Alex slashed down with his hand, and this time Julius knocked the back of his head hard on the headboard on the way down. And there, _there_ was the pain, the sharp hot explosion of stars that came with hard wood hitting bone.

'Sorry – '

Julius screamed in real pain and grabbed for Alex's throat, and even though he had trained for years and had the killer instinct, even though Alex was still refusing to fight properly and even though Julius was just plain _stronger_, Alex still managed to grab his arm and pin it to the pillow. Even though his whole _life_ had been training for how to kill, Alex had been in more _real_ fights, and he was just plain _better_. Julius could never have beaten him. And he was so _beautiful_.

Ignoring the tears that he knew were spilling over, Julius flung out his free arm and pulled open his bedside drawer. He rummaged for the roll of duct tape inside, pulled it out and flung it onto the bed.

Alex pulled back onto his heels.

'Jules – '

'_Do it or I'll kill you_!'

He meant it, too. He would make Alex fight. He would never _surrender_. But why, oh why did he always have to ask? He lunged at Alex again; Alex snatched up the tape and they grappled. Alex threw his hands up to shield his face, scratching for the end of the tape. He could see now that he would have to defend himself. Julius's fingers were trying to find some purchase on Alex's arm, and then he felt the sticky grip of the duct tape on his skin. Alex wrestled him backwards, winding it untidily round and round his wrists until he had restricted Julius's movements enough that he could pin him and start tying him properly. He lashed Julius's arms together from wrist to elbow, and Julius couldn't hit him any more. He was relieved.

But he could still kick, and did so, hard. Alex grabbed his ankle and twisted – Julius felt something pull in his hip and along his thigh – then flipped him over, onto his belly. Julius tried to brace his elbows and pull his face out of the pillow. Alex's hands went under him to undo the button on his trousers.

He stripped him from the waist down. Julius kicked out one more time, to give him no choice but to tape his ankles together. Then Alex dug a knee between Julius's shoulders to hold him down and ran more tape from his wrists to the headboard, stretching his arms out in front of him. He wrapped the tape round three times to secure it. Then he knelt still, breathing heavily.

'Mouth,' Julius said.

'Oh, come on.'

'_Do it!_' Julius wanted there to be absolutely no way that he could beg for it to stop. Or beg for Alex to go harder, as would more probably be the case.

Alex sighed. Experience from eight deadly missions showed in his steady calm. He raised the duct tape, ripping off a gag-sized strip, and then grabbed Julius's jaw – how had he known he was going to bite? – and held him while he taped his mouth shut.

Alex's weight shifted the bed as he knelt across Julius, his weight settling into the curve of his back. Julius heard him sigh again. His hand came down on the back of Julius's head, pushing it almost ponderously down into the pillow. Then he leant forward, laying their bodies flush together, and bit Julius hard on the shoulder.

Julius tried to gasp and could not. He arched his back, not pulling away from the teeth but pushing towards them. Alex chose a spot a little higher up his neck and bit again, and this time Julius flexed down and away, a moan rising in his throat and escaping as a strangled hum through his nostrils. Alex's knee pressed between his thighs, pushing to force his bound legs apart enough to knead from behind at the places that wanted it most…Julius writhed beneath him, bent his legs up at the knee and bucked; did anything he could, in the absence of words and gestures, that would scream _harder_. The last thing he wanted now, the only thing he couldn't bear, was for Alex to fuck him gently, with tenderness and lingering hands. He would go mad. But then again, wasn't that a truer form of submission and humiliation than what he was trying to make Alex give him? Not being dominated exactly as hard as he wanted to be, but having Alex do exactly what he wanted, and having to _take _it –

He jerked his legs up, once, in an attempted kick, and Alex got the message. He gave another bite, shoved a hand up under Julius's shirt and dragged it down in a symphony of nails on skin – _bastard, bastard, don't give me what I want, why are you still just doing whatever _I_ say?_ – the superficial pain was bright and good, but Julius's mind was elsewhere, on the other hand trailing unobtrusively down the small of his back and over his bare buttocks, and between them. It was hard, hard to relax when you were immobile and vulnerable, impossible to open willingly when your ankles were bound together. No way to fight the invasion, and no way to surrender to it. All you could do was let your muscles go slack and breathe slowly and steadily into the pillow…

But when Alex's finger pressed _in_, the flood of emotions he felt was so strong that for a moment it knocked him breathless. He couldn't even experience them properly for a moment – and then he could, and he was glad he had told Alex to tape his mouth over, or else he would have been screaming _stop stop stop_, and Alex, knowing him, would have stopped.

His next words pretty much summed up Julius's dilemma.

'I'm going to fuck you,' he breathed in Julius's ear. His hand cupped Julius's throat, slid up, grabbed his jaw, hard. 'I'm going to fuck you, you _slut_, and you are going to come, and you are going to like it.'

Julius was grinding his teeth, pressing his face into the pillow and bracing himself to resist whatever came next, but then Alex's hand slipped under him and cupped his groin, and _oh, Jesus Christ_ it felt so good, he was so hard, he wanted it so much. At that touch his whole body melted, just for a moment, and Alex slid into him.

The next noise Julius made was a howl, that escaped his lungs in a high, nasal shriek. He threw his head back, pounding the mattress with his elbows. Alex planted his hands on his shoulders and threw all his weight forward, forcing him back down onto his front, but somehow he was angling his thrusts in a way that drove Julius's hard-on into the bed. No respite. Julius tried to pant; he couldn't get enough air through his nose; his head was spinning. More bites, all the way up the side of his neck this time, but Alex knew full-well what kind of touches were the most painful; there was something almost cruel in the way he kissed back down over the teeth-marks, then licked and sucked, _gently_, damn him –

He felt sick to his stomach. There was nothing, absolutely nothing like the visceral shame of being thrown down on a bed, pinned on your stomach, fucked by your worst enemy, knowing you'd _begged _for it. Alex's hand was between him and the bed again, coaxing, stroking, squeezing, and there was no way he could thrash or scream to take his mind off the sheer pleasure of it. He closed his eyes and faces flashed in front of them: faces in the photographs in the operating theatre. The face in the doorway at Brookland highschool. The face among the tombs of the Egyptian graveyard. Alex, Alex, Alex.

Alex always won, and won so elegantly, without effort, without undignified desire. His victories were so beautiful; Julius was quite happy to be ground head-first into the mud in order to facilitate those golden triumphs. He could never have won. But _look at me!_ he wanted to scream. _You fuck me how I want it, because I want it! Want it! Look at me!_

Alex moved. In and out. _Stop it_, _stop it, _Julius would have chanted if he had been able to speak. _Just don't_ – Alex's hands glided over his erection, his nipple; he felt a brush of bare skin against his lower back, and then deep in him Alex struck that vital spot, and he came, so hard that he felt the duct tape wrenching the tiny hairs on his upper lip as he tried to scream.

What had it been, a paltry two minutes? He clenched his jaw so hard it hurt.

Alex rose slowly up on all fours, panting. The suddenness of Julius's orgasm had taken him by surprise; the contractions had been enough for him. Julius was lying very still, face down, sheened with sweat, panting. Alex reached out and touched him tentatively on the shoulder. Then he rolled Julius's head to the side and took hold of the end of the tape. Sweat and the movements of Julius's jaw had loosened it enough that Alex could peel it away gently.

'You there?' he asked softly, bending over.

'Untie me. Quick.' Julius's voice was quiet, but it had that faint, brittle edge to it that Alex had learned to dread.

Quickly he opened the bedside drawer and pulled out the scissors Julius kept there. He hacked through the tape securing Julius's wrists to the headboard and then started on the tangled mess tying his arms together. Julius's breathing was speeding up. His teeth were clenched. As soon as he could move he did, pushing himself onto his knees, wrenching at the tape even as Alex tried to cut it, ripping himself free.

He pulled one forearm away from the other and jabbed his elbow back at Alex.

'Get out!'

Alex rolled out of reach and tumbled off the bed. He stretched out a hand. 'Jules –'

'Get out, get out, get _out_!'

Julius hadn't followed him. He was still on the bed, tearing at the tape around his legs, but Alex didn't like to think what would happen when he was free.

He deliberated for a moment, then kept the scissors with him. As he slipped out of the door Julius stumbled off the bed and flew after him. Alex dropped into a karate stance, but all Julius did was to slam the door, hard, before Alex could shut it. Alex hurried down the stairs and looked at himself in the hall mirror. His hair was a mess; his shirt had lost a button somewhere, and it was crumpled everywhere where Julius had grabbed him. Semen was soaking through the front of his boxers. How the hell was he supposed to go back to the party looking like this?

* * *

><p>Julius slammed both fists into the door, screaming. White-hot rage was boiling inside him; he wanted to tear through his room until there was nothing left bigger than a matchstick or a handkerchief. He wanted to kill Alex. He wanted to kill himself.<p>

_Beg to be tied up and fucked and then hate him for doing what you want. You perverse idiot._

He wished for his father, for his brothers. He knew what they would say. _You're weak. Pathetic. Fight him, kill him, or die trying. Avenge yourself_. But he knew what he would say back, too. _Nothing is as sweet as having your face ground into your own failure. Nothing. I don't care._

He flung a large, heavy German dictionary at the opposite wall. He longed for the crash of glass, but that might bring people from downstairs running. Eventually his storming around the room brought him to his dressing table. He tilted his mirror up towards himself and stared into it, pressing one fist to the glass. Why did he even have this thing? It wasn't as if he didn't know what he looked like in the mirror.

_Why bother with a mirror? Just look at Alex_.

He chuckled once at his own joke, then drew his fist back. He wanted nothing more than to smash the mirror and its twisted reflection into fragments.

_But you'd regret it later_.

Julius stilled. The voice of reason was like a little window opening, a breath of fresh air. The inferno in his mind immediately towered up and burned the cool out. Stopping gave him no pleasure. It was a huge, draining effort to sink into his chair.

But when he had first come here, he knew, he would have smashed the mirror, and to hell with the consequences. Baby steps. He smiled bitterly and turned his arm up to examine the blue vein in his wrist.

When he had first come here, he would have smashed the mirror and then used a shard to slash his wrist. He might look like Alex, and have only scars pertaining to Alex, but the blood in the vein was his own. Now, it was enough to press his finger to the pulse point, and imagine the blood flowing underneath. His own blood. His own heartbeat.

_Me. Myself._

He closed his eyes and breathed.

**A/N: And that came out horribly, for some reason. Whatever. Goodnight.**


	7. A Coupl'a Songs

**A Coupl'a Songs**

******A/N: That wonderful moment when you realise you're in document manager and can actually select bold and italics instead of coding for them like on deviantart.**

**I have a couple ideas for further creepy happenings kicking around inside my head, but for now I can't be bothered to write them, so you get to have these two songs I wrote instead. They are from the headcanon where Julius is an angsty musician who occasionally sings with my internal band, the Non-Conformists (see Band Together). The first one is full of phallic imagery and kind of plays on the theme of chapter two of this fic, 'Catch the Air,' and the general idea that Alex just doesn't care about Julius the way Julius is obsessed with Alex. Even after Julius has killed Jack, Alex tells him, 'you're nothing to me.' The second one is less about Alex and just about Julius's mindset in general, and it references the funfair-drawing scene! I have no idea how the second verse is relevant to Julius at all, but it seemed cool so I left it in. It has a tune, which sounds awesome in my head and turns to 'The Bear Necessities' when I try to sing it, and it does scan, I promise!**

**Amor Juli**

Babe, you rocked my world's foundations,  
>Deepest deep to tallest height.<br>Destroying my life was just your day-job;  
>Tell me what you do at night.<br>Maybe I'll take out my blade  
>and put it in you, cut you, tear you.<br>With these feelings there's no training  
>On this earth that can prepare you.<p>

_Baby, I know you can read_  
><em>my everything clear on my face.<em>  
><em>However deep I cut inside you,<em>  
><em>I can't find your secret place.<em>  
><em>However deep I search inside you,<em>  
><em>I can't find your secret place.<em>

In the night when you are sleeping,  
>Can't you feel me rock the bed?<br>Groaning, sleepy, you roll over,  
>Glance and shatter me instead.<br>Revenge is just a word for power.  
>I've got it when I fuck you, suck you.<br>In my power for half an hour.  
>I'm wondering if I could break you.<p>

_If you crush a skull you'll never_  
><em>Know what was behind the face.<em>  
><em>However deep I cut inside you,<em>  
><em>I can't find your secret place.<em>  
><em>However deep I plunge inside you,<em>  
><em>I can't find your secret place.<em>

On my body I can't find  
>A single scar you didn't make.<br>Darling, I'm just a ghost of you,  
>An imprint trailing in your wake.<br>So smash the glass in, break the mirror,  
>Let our spirits intertwine,<br>And when I drop my aching fist,  
>At least I'll know the blood is mine.<p>

_I just want to leave a mark_  
><em>on you that history can trace.<em>  
><em>However deep I tear inside you,<em>  
><em>I can't find your secret place.<em>  
><em>I can make you hurt and scream,<em>  
><em>Chase after you through time and space,<em>  
><em>But however deep I cut you,<em>  
><em>I can't find your secret place.<em>

**I'm Gonna Die of this Someday**

Woke up, with a start.  
>Took a kicking from my beating heart.<br>I've put my crayon down  
>But the merry-go keeps spinning round.<br>I didn't know how many sprites were camped behind my eyes  
>Until they started lighting fires that I didn't recognise.<p>

_My soul is a barren trail that my body's got to walk_  
><em> To find the answers that<em>  
><em> I know are there.<em>  
><em> They've got to be around somewhere and<em>  
><em> Hey! You! What's your deal?<em>  
><em> Make this kick seem so surreal<em>  
><em> And I, I, I don't know why<em>  
><em> But I know I'm going to die of this someday…<em>

_Ah…_

Up in heaven there's a guy  
>Has to bottle breath; I don't know why.<br>How to store the breath that blows my way  
>From all the folks that died today?<br>The winds that I can't bottle make the whole place so damned cold.  
>They get into my tissues and I swear I'm getting old!<p>

_My soul is a barren trail that my body's got to walk_  
><em> To find the answers that<em>  
><em> I know are there.<em>  
><em> Got to be around somewhere and<em>  
><em> Hey! You! What's your deal?<em>  
><em> Make this kick seem so surreal<em>  
><em> And I, I, I don't know why<em>  
><em> But I know I'm going to die of this someday…<em>

_Ah…_

I've just been dragged backwards through the blazing gates of purgatory  
>Past some bureaucrat who doesn't want to listen to my story.<br>All I ever wanted was to go out in a blaze of glory  
>But I don't suppose that there's much hope of that in purgatory!<p>

_My soul is a barren track up a steep and dusty stair_  
><em> Where myself has built<em>  
><em> A bivouac <em>  
><em> And I know he's waiting there.<em>  
><em> There ain't room for the two of us.<em>  
><em> That's why I'm pressed against my skull,<em>  
><em> While the others sling their backpacks on <em>  
><em> And saunter off to school! Oooh…<em>

I've put my crayon down  
>But the roundabout keeps spinning round.<br>Hey, Doc. What you see?  
>Gonna pick apart the threads of me?<br>Well, you see, the problem with the happy camper don't you know  
>Is he's rooted in my blood and bone because I helped him grow!<p>

_My soul is a barren trail that my body's got to walk_  
><em> To find the answers that<em>  
><em> I know are there.<em>  
><em> They've got to be around somewhere and<em>  
><em> Hey! You! What's your deal?<em>  
><em> Make this kick seem so surreal<em>  
><em> And I, I, I don't know why<em>  
><em> But I know I'm going to die of this someday…<em>


	8. Imitation is Sincere

**Imitation is Sincere**

**Disclaimer: **Blah, blah, yaddah yadda. Come on, I _invented_ Julius Grief.

**A/N: The one in which it transpires that Julius has been *interested* in Alex for a loooooong time…I do love my pre-Point Blank headcanon. Also, guys, let me tell you the awkward thing that happened to me with regard to this story. **

**The awkward thing that happened to me with regard to this story is that boys at my school found out that it existed, and read it. **

**But they were actually pretty cool about it, so guys, if you're still reading, here's a shoutout to you! And let all my readers be warned: You Can Never Be Too Paranoid About Your Fanfiction Accounts. Never. Spoken by the girl whose **_**mother**_**…yeah.**

**Warnings for this chapter: voyeurism. **

Julius was practising his impersonation of Alex Friend, using still and moving footage from the academy's camera network and the techniques of Method acting.

The reasoning was that you could never mimic another person's behaviour perfectly from memory. It was simply too complicated – you could copy the exact tilt of their head or the way they distributed their weight using a photograph, but you would never remember it all perfectly. Instead, you had to focus on how different postures made you feel. Then later, conjure up the feeling, and your body would automatically recreate the posture.

He practised a few basic stances first. Shoulders thrown back. Bold and confident. Head tilted to the side. Puzzled and inquisitive. Arms wrapped around torso. Defensive.

Not something his father had ever taught him to be. Of course it was a two-sided process, learning the kinds of attitudes and feelings these wealthy boys filled their heads with, and then how those attitudes were expressed in physical posture. A whole new way of life, a whole language. But Julius was getting there.

He studied a still image of Friend, taken as he was queuing for his lunch next to James Sprintz, whose face had become his brother Charlemagne's. The photograph would do as a basic resting-stance. Julius had noticed about ordinary people that they were never comfortable with letting their arms hang loose. They always crossed them, or fiddled with something. True to the type, Friend had one hand tucked into the pocket of his jeans, but he wasn't doing anything with the other. It was quite a relaxed stance. Confident.

Next he brought up some footage of Friend walking alone down the corridor, and played it on loop. He practised over and over again, walking towards the television, reflecting Friend's motions across the screen. The walk wasn't a million miles away from Julius's own: active, springy, brisk. How did it make him feel? It was the walk of a person who was aware of his body, and who trusted his body.

_How does it make you feel_. The woman who had taught Julius the basics of Method acting was dead. After she had seen him, she was too much of a liability. Doctor Grief had given him a gun and some very simple instructions.

Julius froze the film and stared at the pixelated image. He thought back to earlier that day: the first and only glimpse he had caught of Friend in the flesh, walking around the side of the castle with Sprintz in the snow. It had been a reckless thing to do, exposing himself in the window like that. Maybe he had had some foolish notion that by seeing the boy himself he would somehow get a foretaste of the life he was going to steal. It had been an eerie feeling, a heady feeling, looking down on a foolish, oblivious creature and knowing that by and by you would slip down and become him. Julius wetted his lips with his tongue, conjuring up – perfect recall; always a skill to practise – the moment: Friend had walked around the side of the castle, had frowned at what Sprintz was saying, and then had looked up.

It had been a worrying moment. The rabbit that the hawk catches does not look up. Julius couldn't shake the fancy that, if their eyes had met, Alex Friend would have turned from prey into…something else.

From memory, then, he practised it. The energetic walk, slowed to a conversational amble. The frown – what had he been feeling? Considering…troubled…angry? So much hinging on the quirk of an eyebrow or lip! And then, in the middle of the conversation, he had half-turned, and looked up.

Now, what did that feel like? The startle of a prey animal, but without the panic. Very alert. For a moment the awareness swirling inside himself made Julius uneasy. What had made the brat look up?

_Don't be melodramatic. He saw something in the tail of his eye. He's the observant sort. It doesn't mean anything_. There was a fine line between caution and paranoia, and Julius was careful not to let himself slip across it. The worst-case scenario was that Friend had glimpsed something, but it made no difference. Thinking of the walk, the watchfulness and the well-maintained body, Julius felt glad that he was to mimic a person whose habits he could almost respect.

Doctor Grief walked suddenly into the room, and Julius's stomach lurched. The frequency with which his father spoke to him now that the Gemini Project was in its final phase, and especially since he himself had been assigned an identity, was still something he hadn't got used to.

'Father,' he said, nodding, trying to stand straight.

Doctor Grief raised one eyebrow, and Julius jumped. He immediately turned sideways-on to his father, thrust his hands into his pockets and stared vacantly at the wall. It felt completely wrong, but it was what an insolent boy like Friend would have done.

'Alex!' Doctor Grief said sharply.

Julius swung his head round, expression questioning – Friend wasn't as rude as some they'd had.

'Yeah?' he asked.

Doctor Grief gave a tiny nod. 'Good. Not perfect, but you have made progress. Go to bed now. Alex Friend is in his room. Watch his evening routine, then sleep. It is important that you remain well-rested.

'Yes, father,' Julius said, nodding. Doctor Grief inclined his head towards the door, to indicate that Julius should go at once.

He hurried along the corridor to his bedroom. He was walking too fast for Friend. Ever since they had started taking in students, none of them could set a foot out of doors during daylight. School terms were a purgatory of idleness; he wanted to run. He had been brought up running. But he reigned himself back to the steady pace he was supposed to be learning to emulate.

He stepped into the darkened bedroom. Alone. No dormitory with sixteen people…it was almost a relief to switch on the television mounted in the corner of the ceiling opposite his bed, so that he could watch another figure moving around.

The camera was set almost invisibly into Friend's ceiling, and gave Julius a bird's-eye view of the room. There was nobody visible. Julius punched a button on the control pad beside his bed for sound, and hidden microphones brought him the rustle of running water. Friend must be showering. Julius propped up his pillows and settled himself against the headboard to wait.

A minute or two later the water shut off, and Alex Friend walked out of the en-suite bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. The hair around the nape of his neck was darkened and pulled out into long clinging locks with water. He had faintly golden skin; Julius looked away from the screen for a moment and down at his own arm. It had been very pale, before the operation. They had had to reject several swarthier-skinned applicants to the academy because deep tanning was too dangerous.

Friend moved to the far side of his bed, his lower body hidden from the camera, and began to towel himself vigorously dry. His actions were brisk, but at the same time it looked as though he was enjoying being clean and dry. That was at odds with the grimy clothes slung over the back of his chair. Strange. Julius considered why a person would dress in such a slovenly way if they relished stepping out of the clothes afterwards. It must be, like the new mannerisms he himself was fostering, a front; a charade. It would have been quite endearing if it hadn't been so pathetic.

Friend bent down to dry his legs, then whipped the towel up over his head and rubbed, hard. When he let the towel crumple to the floor, his hair was standing out in a messy blond halo. He pulled a pair of boxer shorts off the chair and clambered into them, revealing a flash of buttock as he did so. Looking at him nude reminded Julius that he was going to have to lose a little muscle mass if he was to play his part successfully. Alex friend was fit, but he didn't exercise for six hours a day.

It was very warm inside the mansion. Friend didn't make to put on any more clothing. For a moment he stood where he was. Julius adjusted the camera a little, zooming in on his face. He looked tired, and not particularly happy. His eyes raked around the room for a moment, not looking for anything in particular but as though he were trying to see beyond it. Then he gave a groan and toppled face-first onto the bed, his head landing on the pillow with a soft thump.

There was plenty to work on there. Julius could review the tape once and then go to bed. He let the camera roll for a moment longer, watching the slow rise and fall of Friend's breathing. His face was invisible from this angle, turned away and half-buried in the pillow. One of his hands was curled beside his head, and the other was trapped under his body. It didn't look very comfortable, but he made no move to rearrange himself. He only stirred, flexing his arm a little, and shifted his hips on the bed. Julius was about to turn over and try the arrangement for himself when Friend gave a sudden, impatient hiss and pushed with his left hand, flipping himself back onto his back.

His right hand had disappeared down the front of his boxer shorts.

Julius's stomach gave a sickening lurch without his quite knowing why. He couldn't form any kind of reaction – though how would he have reacted, anyway? There was nothing to be done – while Friend rolled his hand a few times inside his shorts, then stripped them off altogether and took a firm grip on his penis, which was stiff, and pointing straight up towards his navel.

All Julius's information about the phenomenon of masturbation came from observing his older brother Alexander's experience. One night he had been seized by sexual urges for the first time, and, since none of the boys kept any secrets, he had told them all at breakfast the next morning. He had been soundly thrashed, and Mrs Stellenbosch had later called them all together and told them that the desire for sexual intercourse was no different than the desire for sleep or food. It was a normal instinct which they must learn to control rigorously, and since, unlike lack of food or sleep, lack of intercourse would not kill them, the desire for it must be controlled with correspondingly greater strictness. It was here that Alexander had gone wrong.

Julius had never even considered repeating the mistake, whatever physiological reactions his body might have. Obedience to his father was a well-entrenched habit. But Alex Friend didn't look like he was thinking of controlling his non-essential urges. There was nothing disciplined about the hard jerk of his hand. Julius felt an automatic sneer prickling on his lip at his lack of restraint, but now that he looked, Friend's expression wasn't particularly wanton. It looked almost serene, almost detached. He moved his hand the same way he had dried his hair: efficiently.

What did that feel like…?

Friend's bent legs were wide apart, knees almost touching the mattress on either side. Julius mimicked the posture. It felt exposed, mostly. Julius frowned at the television screen. Of course, Friend couldn't possibly know he was being filmed, but even so, wasn't the human instinct generally towards modesty? People tended to conceal themselves from imaginary eyes even when there was no one watching. Friend should have been doing that under a blanket. It was the same thing as his bold walk and his dropping the towel: confidence.

Why was he so confident? Julius looked at the spread-out body with fresh eyes. Was it exceptionally beautiful?

He himself was completely still. He could feel stirrings in his own body now, stirrings that he had felt before, of course, but which had always been irrelevances. But what would they be to an ordinary boy with no higher goal, of the kind he was supposed to be emulating? It would not be a lapse of discipline to attempt to find out. Julius's hand slipped down, hovered, then grasped.

The first slide stirred a fine mesh of nerves under his skin from passive threads into little veins of fire. The next one layered more sensation over that left by the first, and by the fourth the feeling was so strident that he had to slow down for a moment. Julius bit his tongue, forced himself to think rationally. How did one set about this? He pushed himself further up his pillows and groped for the camera controls, zooming in to get a clearer view of what Alex Friend was doing.

The motion up and down of his hand was steady, but every few strokes he would flick his thumb up over the head of his penis, so that the foreskin slid back from the glans. Julius copied the movement once, and again had to stop. The clamour of nerves was incredible.

He would have liked to move very slowly, because he felt as though he were gripping some kind of time bomb, but the object of the exercise was to imitate Friend, who was not moving slowly. In fact his movements were almost brusque. His eyes were squeezed shut in some kind of perfunctory pleasure, but beneath that he looked almost impatient, as though he only wanted to get the whole business over with as quickly as possible. Julius remembered the impatient sigh he had given when he first rolled over, and how tired he had looked.

Imagine having so much of this that you would find it tiresome! Imagine being so wanton that you would do it even when you didn't want it!

Still, he grimly followed the pace Friend had set. It was punishing; good, but punishing. His eyes fluttered shut with the onslaught of sensation, and he forced them open again because closing them wasn't helping him learn how to be Friend, and then he realised that learning how to be Friend had ceased to be the primary objective of the exercise, and shortly after that that this meant that the exercise was no longer useful and should be discontinued, and finally that discontinuing had become more-or-less impossible.

Fixing his eyes doggedly on the screen again brought on another thud in his stomach similar to the one he had felt when Alex Friend first turned over. Friend was moving his hips upwards in little bucks to meet his hand now. His eyes were open again now; for a moment he looked straight at the camera and Julius's heart lurched with the notion that the other boy was somehow seeing him. But the eyes slid up and away, and closed with a sigh that rustled in the speakers around the room. Julius groped for the control pad and spun the volume control, bringing up the sound until he could hear, or fancied that he could hear, the chafe of skin on skin. He zoomed the lens of the camera in, first on Friend's crotch, then on his face, the handsome features of which Julius now bore down to the most minute detail, which was contorted as though in extreme pain, just like the face of the Method instructress whom he had shot. He hadn't known that extreme pleasure, too, could do that to a face. Half-formed images from his imagination jumbled with those on the screen as he brought the camera still closer on Alex Friend. What he would look like tortured. What it would be like to torture him. What, at the other end of the scale, it would be like to –

A sharp yelp sounded in the speakers, and almost simultaneously another came from Julius's mouth. The two shouts were almost indistinguishable, because postures, expressions and actions convey what a person is feeling, and Julius and Alex Friend were feeling more or less the same thing. Friend almost immediately followed it up with an exasperated growl and scrabbled on his bedside table for a tissue, but Julius just lay there, panting, sticky with himself. His eyes ached from the pressure of squeezing them shut, and there was a faint ringing in his ears.

Alex Friend wadded up his soiled boxers and lobbed them off the bed, stumbled to his suitcase, pulled out a fresh pair and yanked the curtains closed across the window. Then he collapsed onto the bed exactly as he had done before. His blondish hair, longer than it looked, flopped over his forehead onto the pillow. This time his arms were folded under his head. He didn't move.

Julius slowly pulled the bedsheets up over himself. He felt tired, but all the same he lay awake for a long time, watching Alex Friend's shoulders rise and fall with his breathing.

**A/N: Yeah, so Julius has his first masturbatory experience, and he makes a massive deal out of it because he's a massive drama queen. Oh Jules. I love you so much 3**

**Now get over there and help him deal with his frustration, Alex! It's the decent thing!**


	9. Pure Evil

**Pure Evil**

**A/N: I dedicate this chapter to two real-world friends of mine, to whose interests it is relevant. I am afraid there is no porn this time. I couldn't dedicate porn to real-world friends; it would be weird. Enjoy, anyway.**

Julius was struggling through the second half of a therapy session when the telephone rang.

'I know that it's generally considered rude to take a phone call in the middle of a conversation,' he said to Dr Flint, 'but since these sessions are supposed to be making me a normal person, and since receiving phone calls is, as I understand it, a normal thing to do, it seems somewhat perverse to miss a phone call for the sake of a session teaching me how to get phone calls. Don't you agree? Thank you.' He picked up the phone.

Over the last few months Julius had learnt to channel and dispel his homicidal urges towards Dr Flint by merely being very, very rude to her.

'Grief,' he said into the phone.

'Julius, Julius, Julius!' a voice squealed into his ear.

Julius's eyebrows went up. It was Sabina Pleasure, obviously in a state of high excitement.

'Hello, Sabina…' he said.

'Kittens!'

'I…what?'

'Kittens, Julius! I mean – ' She paused and took a breath. 'Do you want a kitten?'

'I'm in the middle of a therapy session, Sabina,' Julius said testily. Behind him, Dr Flint permitted herself a silent ironic laugh. 'Why are you interrupting to pester me about kittens?'

'It's important, Julius, I need to know quickly if you want a kitten.'

'Why on Earth would I want a kitten?'

'The rescue centre where I volunteer has a litter. They have homes for all of them but one. It needs somewhere to go, Jules! Do you want it? Because I think you need a kitten.'

'What – ?' Julius stopped talking for a moment while his rational mind wrapped itself around the absurdity of that statement. 'Why would a – a person like _me_ have any need of a kitten? And why would it have any need of me, more to the point?'

'I think it would help redeem you.'

'Why would a kitten redeem me?'

'Because – because – _kittens!_'

Evidently Sabina thought the answer to his question was obvious.

'Sabina –'

'Please, Julius, he needs a home! He might _die_!'

'Oh, for God's sake!' Julius shouted. 'Look, fine, bring the damned kitten around and I'll think about it, all right?'

'Thank you, Julsie!' Sabina tinkled. 'I have the litter tray and the basket and everything, and a leaflet from the rescue home explaining how – '

'Goodbye, Sabina,' Julius said, and put the phone down.

He turned around and saw Dr Flint gaping at him.

He gestured wordlessly for a moment, but couldn't think of any sensible way of explaining the conversation.

'She wants to bring me a kitten,' he said in a rush.

'Well, Julius, I think that's a lovely idea!' Dr Flint exclaimed. 'People often find that having a pet, something that they are responsible for and that they can trust, can really –'

'I need to be alone,' Julius said, throwing out one of the stock phrases she had taught him for when he was "finding things difficult," and bolted out of the room.

Sabina knocked on his door in the mid-afternoon.

'Sabina. Is that it?' Julius said churlishly, throwing the door open and glaring at the carrier in her arms, lined with paper shavings.

'Yes,' she said. She was awkwardly laden with the carrier and a bag of equipment. Julius stood in the doorway with his arms folded, not offering to help. 'Um, here, look, I've brought you things…we used to have two cats at my house and we still have all their stuff, so I brought it for you to use…basket and litter tray…the cat, he's a four-week-old male kitten; that means he's just about ready to be weaned but, yeah, the shelter gave me a bottle and a tin of formula for you to feed in the meantime, and this booklet, it's got everything you need to know –'

'All right, whatever,' Julius said, flapping his hand to shut her up. 'Let me get a look at the bloody thing.'

Sabina put one of the bags down on the doorstep and shifted the other to her shoulder, leaving her hands free to manoeuvre the lid off the carrier.

Julius leaned over the opening to see. There, nestled in the paper shavings with its eyes tight shut, was a tiny, dark-grey, tabby kitten.

'D'awww!' he cried.

Sabina laughed.

Julius slammed the door in her face. Then he pulled it open again, snatched the carrier out of her hands and slammed it once more.

By the time Sabina had gone around the back of the house, climbed in through the open kitchen window and made her way to the living-room, Julius had positioned the carrier in the middle of the floor and was crouching in front of it, one hand lying palm-up in the entrance. From his intent expression, she would have thought he was trying to make friends with a wild stoat or a bird, rather than a kitten.

The kitten had woken up and was watching Julius just as closely as he was watching it. Its tail twitched. Julius curled his fingers slightly. The kitten moved a paw. Julius shifted on his haunches.

'Um, Jules?' Sabina said tentatively. 'Do you like it?'

The kitten yawned hugely, exposing four tiny, dagger-white teeth and its small pink tongue.

Julius's face split into a huge grin.

'I love its little fangs!' he said.

Sabina burst out laughing.

'What? What?' Julius demanded indignantly, though he couldn't quite get rid of his smile.

'That is just _so_ typically you, Julius!' Sabina laughed. '"I love its little fangs." Of course you do. I knew you would.'

'Whatever,' Julius muttered again. He reached into the box and ran his hand down the kitten's spine, from the base of its head to its fluffy tail.

'Cats are evil, you know, Jules,' Sabina said. 'Pure evil. I knew you'd like its fangs.'

'I see,' Julius said. 'And this is the creature that was supposed to…er…_redeem _me, was it?'

'It's complicated,' Sabina said. 'I'll leave the two of you to figure it out together – that is, if you want it?'

Julius threw his arms around the pet carrier.

'It's mine; don't take it away!' he shouted.

'All right,' Sabina laughed. 'Your instructions are here –' She dumped the equipment on the floor and tapped the leaflet on top of the stack. 'Call me if you need anything, babes.'

She left the room and let herself out of the front door.

Julius was left contemplating the kitten.

'Well,' he said.

It yawned again.

'So…' he said, waving a hand rather pointlessly around. 'This is my house.' He thought for a moment, head on one side. 'I need to think of a good name for you. A name both angsty and ominous… or maybe just really cool.'

Julius scooped the kitten up and dropped it onto his keyboard, which he owned because children his age weren't allowed jobs that would pay for proper pianos. The kitten played a few notes with its paws as it righted itself, then climbed onto the music stand and looked round.

Julius sat down in front of it and began to play.

'This is Bach's Fugue in C minor,' he said. 'You will soon learn to appreciate Bach.'

The kitten watched him solemnly as he played and batted at his fingers.

'Okay, cat, let me tell you how we run things around here,' Julius said, still playing. 'I hear you kittens are pure evil, so I expect you to pull your weight. There's this boy called Alex who comes around here sometimes. Whenever he comes, I want you to take your little kitten-claws and attach yourself to his face with them. He'll like that. And when my therapist comes, attack her hair. As for the girl, Sabina, whenever she sits down I want you to spring lightly into her lap and do that kneading thing on her legs with your paws that cats do to make people nice and comfortable. For them. Do you think you can do all that?'

'Nyan?' the kitten said, gazing at him with its wide green eyes.

Slowly, Julius smirked.

'Excellent,' he said. 'Sabina Pleasure will rue the day she brought you to me, kitten. Together, you and I shall rule the world!'

**A/N: Because Julius needs a kitten. **

**If I had a kitten it would be called Zuko after the character from Avatar: The Last Airbender, if any of you know that. If I had a girl-kitten it would be called Azula. So maybe Jules calls his kitten Zuko.**

**The line about 'making people all comfy. For the them' is from the Georgia Nicolson series by Louise Rennison. I figured that it was okay to steal it as long as I disclaimed it, since this is fanfiction anyway.**

**So Dr Flint is still Julius's therapist in spite of everything and Sabina is somehow back from America. Roll with it, people; it's either this or a bunch of OCs.**

**True out! xxx**

**P.S: www . youtube watch?v = eVs2TTYkKF8 The piece Julius plays. I would take it a little slower, I think, but still cool. **


	10. Something to Live For

**Something to Live For**

Julius dreamt that he was being tortured by someone whose identity did not matter, but who had taken on the form of Jack Starbright. That at least made sense. Julius had learnt that love was not soft and weak as Dr Grief had always told him. On the contrary, it turned people into murderers and psychotics.

In his dream, he begged for the torture to stop. He asked the torturer (Jack) why she was doing this. He promised to answer questions. He asked her what she wanted to know.

'God damn it, what do you want?' he howled finally.

There had been no questions. There had been no demands. There had been no threats.

'You know what I want,' the Jack-torturer said.

'I promise,' Julius dreamed he panted, 'I won't kill Alex. I won't even think of doing it. I won't want to do it, if you just _stop_.'

'Remember what this feels like,' his torturer said to him. 'You wanted this pain to stop more than anything, anything in the whole world. Remember what it feels like to want something more than you want to kill Alex.'

Julius woke, drenched in sweat, his sheets in a strait-jacket around him. Beside him in the bed, Alex was curling into a ball and groping around in his sleep to try and pull the sheets over himself.

'Rider!' Julius hissed, poking him.

'Wha-uh-ugh?' Alex blurted, stumbling into wakefulness. He twisted halfways round and glared. 'Oh. What?'

'Rider, why are you just sleeping there?' Julius demanded.

'What?' Alex repeated. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean you're just lying and sleeping there.'

Alex made a growling noise and buried his head under the pillow.

'I can't believe you woke me up for this rubbish,' he grumbled. 'Wait, yes I can. You're a sadist and you hate me.'

'Exactly,' Julius said. He pulled Alex out from under the pillow and rolled him over so that they were facing each other. Alex was slighter and slimmer than him. He could feel his own muscles working.

'Oh, I see,' Alex said. He was more lucid now, and seemed to have decided to humour Julius in his serious mood.

'Why do you sleep so deeply when you're next to…next to me?' Julius asked.

Alex looked him straight in the eye.

'Because I'd rather die tonight than be afraid for the rest of my life,' he said.

'I see,' Julius said.

Alex propped himself up on his elbow.

'You see, Jules, MI6 have turned me into a person who knows how to look out for himself, and _has _to look after himself, because he's got a lot of enemies. I used to wake up with nightmares sometimes. I'd wake if I heard a noise at night. It took me weeks to stop looking over my shoulder after the sniper.

'And then one day I decided, to hell with it, I'm not doing this anymore. Life's not worth living if the only project in your life is prolonging your life, and also, I didn't _want_ to be the kind of person who worried. That was just MI6 messing me up. So I'm here to enjoy feeling completely, stupidly safe, and to give them two fingers. Because seriously – ' he reached out and touched Julius' face suddenly – 'I'd rather you killed me right now than spend the rest of my life afraid to go to sleep.'

Julius covered Alex's hand with his own. He felt a little sickened, but he leant forward anyway and kissed Alex's forehead, his cheek, his lips, the side of his neck. Then he wrapped his arms around Alex so that they were lying back to chest, settling himself down under the covers.

'So how come you were awake anyway?' Alex murmured.

'Just woke up.'

'Nightmares?'

'A dream. Hey, Alex, I think there are things in life more important to me than killing you.'

'Oh?'

'Yeah,' Julius said. 'Well, at least, if I was being tortured, I'm pretty sure I'd promise not to kill you to make it stop. I'd rather not be tortured than kill you.'

'That's nice.'

'Mmmh.' Julius closed his eyes. 'It is. Nice to have a life worth keeping, isn't it?'

'True, true. Sleep tight. Don't poke me no more.'

'Goodnight.'

**A/N: I'm ba-a-ack! Trying to get myself back into writing after a LONG year at university, and slipping rather blatantly into the you-can-kill-me-if-you-want-to kink which is an ulterior motive for this fic, though not, I like to think, the main event. I have some taste. Some of the time. **

**In other news, I have started a blog! It will have stuff about sex and kink on it, though it's pretty thin at the moment, being new. Check it out, and if you like it share it with people, because I love to write and I want to get known which means I need a blog that people read. Do it for me, my fanfiction pals!**

** sexsingingandsociety. blogspot. / (Take out the spaces)**

**True xxx**


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